1 Section 1.

A Brief History of Reinforced Concrete

2 Cement, in its various forms, has a surprisingly long history going back to prehistoric times. In contrast,
3 the development of reinforced concrete is relatively recent. It is interesting to note that manure, clay,
4 stone, timber, and metal were used “as is” in building. It took human creativity to put metal and concrete
5 together to give it special properties and to invent or re-invent ways of using it to serve society.
6 Inventions in reinforced concrete started in the mid-nineteenth century with Joseph Lambot’s boat (Fig.1-
7 1) and continue to our day. The brief view of the history of reinforced concrete in this chapter is intended
8 to emphasize to the student there is still room for creativity in uses of reinforced concrete.
9 Lambot’s main interest was agriculture. That was why his first
10 commercial product in reinforced concrete was a container for
11 oranges. The next notable inventor in reinforced concrete was
12 another agriculturist, Joseph Monier, who also started experimenting
13 with reinforced concrete containers in 1867. In 1868, he projected
14 his concept to pipes. After having tried precast panels for
15 architectural facades in 1872, in 1873 he expanded his container
16 concept to build a large silo to hold cement. His success with the silo
17 inspired him to build a bridge in 1875 at the Château de Chazelet,
18 France. The bridge led him to patent the concept of the reinforced
19 concrete beam. His contribution was a series of pragmatic inventions
20 that appeared to be the product of cut-and-try thinking.
21
Figure 1-1. Boat Built by Joseph Francois Hennebique, inspired by Monier’s successes, developed a
Lambot, 1849 22 scientific approach to the proportioning of reinforced concrete
23 elements to obtain a patent in 1879, one that was denied to him in
24 favor of Monier seven years later. The Hennebique construction company helped make reinforced
25 concrete a serious construction material
26 in Europe. Hennebique’s signal
27 triumph was the initiation of a technical
28 journal on reinforced concrete in 1896.
29 Hennebique’s attempts at providing an
30 intellectual underpinning for design
31 attracted German engineers to consider
32 reinforced concrete. Ritter 1 recognized
33 the nonlinearity of concrete at higher
34 stresses and was the first in visualizing
35 a reinforced concrete beam not as it is
36 but as a truss. His ideas were further
37 developed by Morsch2.
38 The initial attraction for using
39 reinforced concrete in building
40 construction may have been its fire Figure 1-2. First Reinforced Concrete Building in the USA (Port
Chester, NY, 1875
41 resistance but its increasing popularity

1
Ritter, W. (1899) Die Bauweise Hennebique, Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Vol. 17, pp. 41-61
2
Moersch, E. (1902) Der Betoneisenbau, seine Anwendung und Theorie. Wayss & Freytag, Stuttgart.

Reinforced Concrete in Thirty Lectures 1-1

 1 was due to the creativity of engineers who kept extending its limits of application. The French engineer
2 Francois Coignet expanded the use of reinforced concrete in European buildings. In the United States,
3 William E. Ward built the first landmark building structure in reinforced concrete in Port Chester, NY
4 (Fig. 1-2). It did not take very long for enterprising engineers in the U.S. to push the story limit to 15
5 stories or 210 ft (Ingalls Building, Fig. 1-3). In the same year, C. A. P. Turner3 built his first flat slab that
6 popularized the construction of reinforced concrete buildings throughout the world because of its
7 phenomenal economy and convenience. The next important height achievement was in Chicago’s
8 Executive House Hotel that reached 371 ft completed in 1958. Convenient access to 6000-psi concrete
9 and the concept of the flat plate (derived from the flat slab) enabled William Schmidt to conceive the
10 proportions of the Lake Point Tower (645 ft) in 1964, which was noteworthy not only because of its
11 height but also because of its low cost (Fig. 1-4).
13 The height of Lake Point
14 Tower was topped by the White
15 Castle, also in Chicago, that
16 reached 961 ft. The next
17 notable jumps were to 1476 ft
18 in the Petronas Twin Towers in
19 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and
20 2684 ft in the Burj Khalifa
21 building in United Arab
22 Emirates. Building height, also
23 influenced by the state of the
24 economy, is a good if
25 incomplete indicator of the
26 advances in building
27 technology (Fig. 1-5).
28 Reinforced concrete became a
29 successful building medium
30 because of continual
31 improvements in its strength,
32 its economy, its durability, its
33 fire resistance, and its beauty
34 (Fig. 1-6).
35

Figure 1-3. Ingalls Building, Figure 1-4. Lake Point Tower,

Cincinnatti, Ohio, 1902. Chicago, IL, 1964.

3
Sozen, M. A., and Siess, C. P., (1963) “Investigation of Multiple-Panel Reinforced Concrete Floor Slabs; Design
Methods—Their Evolution and Comparison,” ACI Journal, Proceedings V. 60, No. 8, Aug. 1963, pp. 999-1028.

Reinforced Concrete in Thirty Lectures 1-2

 3000

2500

2000
Height, ft

1500

1000

500

0
00

04

22

58

60

62

64

67

70

75

89

90

96

09

10
19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

20
Year

Figure 1-5. Changes in Maximum Height of Reinforced Concrete Buildings

1
2 Fig. 1-6 Nariwa Museum designed by Tadao Ando, Japan
3 The Monier and Hennebique experiments with bridges in reinforced concrete introduced the other aspect
4 of reinforced concrete: its “plasticity” in encouraging elegance in the hands of engineering artists such as
5 Maillart of Switzerland (Fig. 1-7) and Torroja of Spain (Fig. 1-8)
6 In the U.S., creativity of the builders in reinforced concrete was supported by research in U.S.
7 laboratories. As opposed to conceptual developments in Europe influenced strongly by the theory of
8 elasticity, A.N. Talbot developed design methods based primarily on observation5. The effect of the
9 water-cement ratio on concrete strength was discovered by Duff Abrams in early twentieth century. In a

5
His influence lasted in the U.S. until the end of the twentieth century when research became an academic
requirement. One of his students, Mikishi Abe, took Talbot’s message of pragmatism to Japan where it is still
strong.

Reinforced Concrete in Thirty Lectures 1-3

 1 project sponsored by the membership of the American Concrete Institute, the foundations for consistent
2 design of reinforced concrete columns were developed by F. E. Richart, who made durable contributions
3 to many aspects of design.

Figure 1-7. Bridge Designed by Maillart, Switzerland. Figure 1-8. Torroja's Aqueduct in Alloz, Spain.
4
5 Hardy Cross worked on arches and frames to invent methods that enabled engineers to deal with
6 continuity, an essential requirement for designing reinforced concrete structures. Cross’s creation of the
7 Moment-Distribution Method popularized the use of reinforced concrete structures. However he is
8 reported to have said that his method was too exact for inexact structures. He thought that knowing the
9 conditions of equilibrium and developing a sense of deflected shapes of structural elements would suffice
10 for proportioning of continuous frames. All young engineers would benefit immensely from reading
11 Chapter 2 of the Cross-Morgan opus on continuous frames.7 Westergaard was successful in simplifying
12 plate theory for use in design. N.M. Newmark and C.P. Siess took the lead in developing simple design
13 methods for reinforced concrete structures subjected to dynamic loads such as earthquake and blast and
14 for prestressed concrete buildings and bridges.
15 Creativity in reinforced concrete was also observed in the construction arena. Slip-form construction was
16 first used to build silos. Its later adaptation to build reinforced concrete walls revolutionized the
17 construction scene. This was matched by developments in precast construction.
18 Because concrete has a tendency to change its volume with time, methods had to be developed to control
19 negative effects of such changes, especially in massive concrete structures such as dams. The Bureau of
20 Reclamation in Denver, CO, provided the intellectual underpinnings for the achievement of such
21 magnificent projects as the successful construction of Boulder and Grand Coulee Dams in the 1930’s.
22 Reinforced concrete continues to be improved. During the last decade of the twentieth century, the
23 compressive strength of concrete moved well above 10,000 psi from a typical 4,000 psi. Self-
24 consolidating concrete made casting of complicated shapes an easy task. Every aspect of the short history
25 of reinforced concrete indicates that the inventions will continue.
26
27 Bare Essentials. Reinforced concrete became a successful building medium because of continual
28 improvements in its strength, its economy, its durability, its fire resistance, and its beauty. Reinforced
29 concrete continues to be improved.

7
Cross, H., Morgan, N. D., (1932), Continuous Frames of Reinforced Concrete, Technology and Engineering, 343 p.

Reinforced Concrete in Thirty Lectures 1-4