How many miles of rebar was used in the construction of the Hoover Dam?

Answer 1

There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer, but structural concrete must be combined with steel reinforcement to provide the shear strength. According to the Hoover dam website, there's at least 582 miles of cooling pipe in the dam:

"By embedding more than 582 miles of 1-inch steel pipe in the concrete and circulating ice water through it from a refrigeration plant could produce 1,000 tons of ice in 24 hours. Cooling was completed in March 1935."

Additionally, the same page has:
"The principal materials, all of which were purchased by the government, were: reinforcement steel, 45,000,000 pounds; gates and valves, 21,670,000 pounds; plate steel and outlet pipes, 88,000,000 pounds; pipe and fittings, 6,700,000 pounds or 840 miles; structural steel, 18,000,000 pounds; miscellaneous metal work 5,300,000 pounds."

"Reinforcement" steel would seem to refer to rebar.

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/faqs/damfaqs.html

The water inlet towers are clearly rebarred in construction pictures. According to: http://www.unlvrebelyell.com/article.php?ID=9707 the dam itself does indeed have steel reinforcement, i.e., rebar:
"In addition to steel reinforcement in the dam's structure, the concrete within the dam is stabilized by the dam's design. Concrete can hold relatively well under compression; the arch design takes advantage of this property as it uses the water weight at its back to compress the concrete, closing any joints."

Answer 2

As a civil engineer, I too am interested in the Hoover dam. I do not know how much rebar was used in the project. I do know that since the structure was a simple gravity dam, no rebar was necessary in the "dam". There are no tensile stresses in that structure. I am sure rebar was used in other structures. But NONE in the dam for structural puposes.

The only reason there is any steel in the structure is to pipe water to cool the mass since concrete curing is an exothermic reaction.

Rebar is used for beams, where there is a tension zone. The rebar provides the tension, the concrete provides the compression and poof, we have a beam.

The dam is no beam. The dam needs no rebar.

Answer 3

Used Rebar

Answer 4

Zero.

there are 96,000,000 LB's of steel and metalwork used by the dam - but none of it IN the dam...

Answer 5

google it