How We Came to Be
The worldwide consumption of stainless steel has been increasing in recent years. Demand is growing in the infrastructure industry for new and repair applications in the transportation sector mainly on roads, bridges, tunnels and underpasses, for parking decks, marine structures, in the mining industry and in the building industry. The appeal of this product to specifiers is its qualities of corrosion resistance and cost reduction benefits, appearance, formability, low maintenance and strength.
Following the discovery in 1913 of stainless steel, the most convincing evidence of the long term performance of stainless steel reinforcement is its use in the highly chloride contaminated environment of the Gulf of Mexico on a 2 km long pier built in 1937 in Progreso, Mexico which is still in operation today.
Progreso is the port city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and its pier, visible from orbit, is the longest in the world. A recent ISO-consistent peer-reviewed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) shows that the selection of stainless steel—in place of the usual carbon steel—has been a productive investment for Mexico and the least demanding on the environment.
The construction of Burgoyne Bridge in St Catharines, ON, integrally used stainless steel rebar.
Our Objective
The Stainless Steel Rebar Information (SSRI) website is an initiative on the part of the Nickel Institute to establish a comprehensive resource of independent information and literature relating to stainless steel rebar (SSR) in order to advance the knowledge base of potential infrastructure owners, material specifiers, design engineers, contractors, academia and the general public for the purpose of raising overall awareness, illustrating the benefits and increasing the usage of this product.
This website focuses on providing infrastructure Owners with the information and tools necessary to assist them in transitioning to the position that SSR is the most effective solution to problems of deteriorating reinforced concrete infrastructure subject to chloride and other chemical attack.
Critical information is also provided to enhance the awareness and effectiveness of the various Owners’ stakeholders and the various entities in the SSR supply chain.
Though stainless steel welded wire reinforcement is available, given the relatively small market at this point the focus will be on bar reinforcement.