For houses, buildings, and bridges, foundations are some common applications for concrete. Low material cost is one the major reasons for the prevalent use in construction as well as the adaptability of the composite for many kinds of applications. Low Environmental impacts have been added incentive for present popular use due to complete recycling of discarded material.

Concrete is a hard and porous composite of cement, sand, aggregate, and gravel. The selection of mixture proportions can be aimed to achieve optimum mechanical behavior of the harden product. Selection can result in the change of the strength, consistency, density, appearance, and durability. Concrete cement is a very compressively strong material after curing and proper component mixture. It is proportionally has a compressive strength 15 times greater than its tensile strength. Here lays the need for tensile mechanical strengthening in the concrete to broaden its applications and use. This tensile strengthening is the major focus and most important aspect for analysis the mechanical behavior of concrete cement composites. Hydration and densification are the most common and necessary ways to strengthen concrete cement composites. Temperature is another major factor in the hydration process and the time needed for the cement to cure or harden (i.e. hotter faster, colder slower). Compaction is the most important step in the densification of the final concrete product. Vibrators, floating, and other surface finishing techniques increase the densification of the concrete. This compaction or densification reduces the amount of pores in the composite thus increases the overall tensile strength.

One of the most prevalent materials in the reinforcement of concrete is steel. The main reason is because of its high tensile. A second almost as valid reason is that steel and concrete cement have almost the same thermal expansion coefficient. This means that when concrete/steel composite expands upon heating all the components of the composite. To insure and strengthen the bonding in a concrete steel reinforced composite the surface of the steel members are processed with the incorporation of contours (or ridged) that is called rebar.