Do you know that Dowel Bars are an amazing and important segment for the construction of roads and they offer a huge amount of benefits? Well, don’t worry as we are here to offer you all the information which you need to know about them. So, let’s begin with the basics.

What is Dowel Bar?

Dowel Bars are short, smooth, and round steel bar which is used for offering a mechanical connection between slabs without restricting horizontal joint movement. These bars are mostly used in the jointed plain concrete pavement for carrying the added load and stress which are induced because of the moving vehicle. They are placed at the transverse joints of concrete pavement and participate in partial wheel load transfer from one slab to the adjacent one. The dowel bars also make way for axial thermal contraction and expansion of the concrete slab along the dowel axis. In one of the concrete slabs, half of the length of this bar is embedded and the remaining portion is bonded in the other adjacent slab. One ends of the bar are kept free for movement during contraction and expansion of the slab because of change in temperature.

In simple words, Dowel bars are round steel which is put across horizontal joints of concrete members and mostly offers ease of load transfer across concrete joints. They also permit the movement to take place. It can be accepted where movements are on purposely designed for longitudinal joints.

What is the Purpose of the Dowel bar?

A Dowel Bar serves a lot of purposes.

  • Dowel bars are offered for the purpose of transferring load across the concrete joints.
  • They are used for reducing corner cracking.
  • Dowel bars are also provided for reducing the joint faulting.
  • The purpose of dowel bars is to improve the performance of the joints.
  • They are offered for transferring the load from one member to the adjacent member such as one slab adjacent to the nearest.

According to the thickness of the pavement, the size of the dowel bars depends. Conventionally the dowel bars are 18 inches (460mm) long, 1.25 to 1.5 inch (32 to 38 mm) in diameter, and are placed 12 inches (305mm) apart. For protecting the bars from corrosion dowel bars are either epoxy or stainless steel coated.

Placement of the Dowel Bars

  • The Dowel bars are required to be placed parallel to the center-line
  • New Channels must be cut so that at least one-half of dowel can be on each side of the joint or crack

For allowing movements, dowel bars are placed across transverse joints of concrete pavement. They are inserted at the middle depth of the slab and are coated with a bond-breaking material for restricting bonding to the PCC. These dowels help for transferring loads which allows expansion and contraction of adjacent slabs independently.

Advantages of Dowel Bar –

  • So, let’ take a look at the advantages offered by Dowel bars –
  • They deflect the breakup of the concrete members because of the essential horizontal movement.
  • Dowel Bars improve the performance of structural member joints.
  • They have been used to increase the load-carrying capacity of the slab.
  • Stainless dowel increases the initial cost of the project but reduces the Life Cycle Cost.
  • Dowel bar is used to extend the structure easily. Small drilling is required to insert the steel for the extension of the structure.
  • Deflection and stresses can be reduced by Dowel Bars.
  • They can also increase the initial structural member’s life.

Uses of Dowel Bars –

  • Dowel bars are used in the rigid pavement where steel and concrete are used
  • Mainly they are used in the slab, column, staircase design where the possible volume may increase or decrease in the future.

Dutco Tennant LLC is the best product, service, and support provider for your dowel bar needs. We are based in Dubai, U.A.E., and we have professional knowledge and skill which are backed by decades of experience in serving the Middle East and Gulf. We are an enterprise with the mission to define technical excellence. Quality, sturdiness, and usefulness are the important attributes of superior quality products that we supply. Quality for us is every business’s lifeline and comes only through years of experience and effort.