Braga Municipal Stadium, Portugal

Braga Municipal Stadium, Portugal
Type of works: supply of Ancon tapered thread couplers.

Set in the Monte Castro hillside, the Braga Municipal Stadium is a striking and unusual design with bare rock faces on two sides.

It consists of two in-situ concrete stands which support floors at three levels. The spine walls are heavily reinforced, and slope at an angle of 15°.

Couplers were not included in the initial design, but after subsequent appraisal by the contractor, Ancon tapered thread couplers were detailed. The use of reinforcing bar couplers can provide significant advantages over lapped joints. Design and construction of the concrete can be simplified, and the amount of reinforcement required is reduced.

Short lengths of bar, the same width as the wall, were fitted with couplers at either end. These assemblies were cast into the wall at floor-level locations, to enable connection of the floor slabs at a later stage. This alleviated the need to drill holes in the formwork to accommodate the projecting lap lengths of rebar.

12m length bars were initially detailed in the main walls to minimise congestion, however the angle of the bars would have made lapped splices very difficult and
time-consuming. The use of tapered thread couplers enabled the splices to be readily made without increasing rebar density, and also allowed shorter bar lengths to be used improving on-site safety.