Which property of rebar is crucial for resisting axial loads?

The property of rebar that is crucial for resisting axial loads is tensile strength. Tensile strength refers to the maximum amount of tensile (pulling or stretching) stress that a material can withstand before failure. In the context of rebar, which is used to reinforce concrete structures, high tensile strength is essential because it allows the rebar to effectively carry and distribute the loads that are applied along its length.

When an axial load is applied to a structure, the rebar must be able to withstand significant amounts of tension without yielding or breaking. The tensile strength ensures that the rebar can maintain structural integrity under high-stress conditions, which prevents structural failure and promotes safety.

While flexibility, ductility, and corrosion resistance are important properties of rebar as well, they do not primarily affect the rebar's ability to resist axial loads in the same way that tensile strength does. Flexibility is more about how much a material can bend without breaking, ductility relates to how much it can deform before failure, and corrosion resistance protects the rebar from environmental degradation. However, for the specific task of resisting axial loads, it is tensile strength that plays the most critical role.