GPH Ispat Limited, one of the leading steel manufacturers in Bangladesh, on Monday launched its new high-grade steel rebar product, which they claim will reduce construction cost as well as ensure safety of the structures.

The group announced to launch GPH Quantum B600D-R steel rebar, first of its kind in the country, within over four months of launching its another new product GPH Quantum B600C-R steel rebar.

GPH Ispat launched the steel at a seminar titled "Countries only high strength and high performing steel GPH Quantum B600 C-R & B600 D-R" at Radisson Blu Chattogram Bay View attended by around three hundred engineers and architects.

In November last year, GPH launched B600C-R steel rebar in Dhaka.

Both the two new products have now been launched together in Chattogram, GPH Ispat's Additional Managing Director Mohammad Almas Shimul told The Daily Star.

The two higher grade products would bring drastic changes in the country's construction sector, the steel maker said.

At the event, Padma Bridge Project Technical Team Leader and renowned structural engineer Professor Shamim Z Basunia said the products tested in Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) would reduce the size of the column section in building construction.

Thus, it would increase the floor area, and the capacity of carrying permanent and chronic loads will be higher, he said while presenting a paper on "Quality Reinforcement Steel: Use of 600MPa (87KSI) Steel in Durable Concrete Construction".

Raquib Ahsan, a professor of the civil engineering department at Buet, said the two products are the result of a research under a long-term collaboration between Buet and GPH Ispat.

Referring to the findings of different tests done during the research, he said the high-grade products provide higher strength and better performance compared to the existing steel grades of 420 and 500 that are available in the country's market.

These products will not only reduce steel consumption and total cost in a project significantly but also has a bigger impact on reduction of environment pollution, Ahsan said.

This new innovation of Buet will bring drastic changes in the construction sector in the country while overall safety has also been kept in mind first, he said.

GPH Group Chairman Mohammad Jahangir Alam said GPH has installed world's latest and modern technology of quantum electric arc furnace in its plant, which has the capability to produce 600 and higher grade steel products.

"Use of our steel will help save hard earned foreign currency."

GPH Ispat Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Shobhan Mahbub Shahabuddin Raj and DGM (Research and Development) Saiful Islam also spoke.