CALTRANS - Standard and Criteria for Reinforcement Coupler

CALTRANS – Standard and Criteria for Reinforcement Coupler

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA FOR MECHANICAL COUPLERS ON ASTM A706 and ASTM A615 REINFORCING STEEL

 

CALTRANS
Type of Test Required	Why ! (Purpose of the test)	What is the Criteria ?
Static tensile strength test	Tensile strength of the Rebar joint (Rebar to Coupler Splice) joint	>1.25Fy
Slip Test	Used to make sure that the plastic movement (slip) between the reinforcement bars with in the Mechanical Splice, when Loaded in tension	<=0.010 inch after applying 0.5fy loading
Uniform Cyclic Load Test (Seismic Elastic)	Used to make sure how a mechanical splice performs when subjected to alternating tension and compression loads for a given number of cycles.   Each cycle may exceed the specified yield strain of the reinforcement bar and is intended to stimulate an earthquake loading.	100 Cycles of stress variation from 50% to 90% of fy
Fatigue Loading
Low Cycle Fatigue Test	The purpose of this test is to evaluate the performance of the splice reinforcement following significant inelastic stress reversal fatigue cycle which would stimulate a seismic event, This includes a series of elastic stress reversal cycle followed by increasing inelastic stress reversal cycle out to 5 times the yield point strain of the reinforcement being tested.   In other words the purpose of fatigue testing of mechanical splices for steel reinforcement bars is to determine the fatigue strength of the mechanical splice.   The fatigue performance of a mechanically spliced bar will normally be lower than that of the un-spliced bar.	10,000 Cycles of alternating tension and compression load of 170 MPa.