Christian Kulas

Realization of TRC Façades with Impregnated AR-Glass Textiles

In the last 30 years, façade-panels made of steel-reinforced concrete have become less attractive for architects and clients. Due to the metallic reinforcement, the insufficient concrete covers of former design code generations and hence the material-dependent corrosion, many cases of damage occurred. Using technical textiles for a new composite material, Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC), it is possible to produce concrete structures which are not vulnerable to corrosion. The presented ventilated large-sized façade elements and self-supporting sandwich panels exemplify the capability of TRC. In the paper, applied materials are characterized and the production process of tailor-made textile reinforcements as well as the load-bearing behavior of the members is described.

Spatial Textile Reinforcement Structures for Ventilated and Sandwich Facade Elements

Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) is a new composite material using mesh-like technical textiles to transfer tensile forces in a concrete member. The main advantage in using these reinforcements is the reduction of concrete covers to only few millimeters leading to slender and light-weight concrete applications like ventilated facade elements and sandwich panels with TRC facings. Based on three applications, which are realized in the last two years, it is revealed that there is a need not only for capable planar fabrics but also for spatial structures. Inherently stable reinforcement structures are achieved by impregnating the fabrics with a resin (e.g. epoxy resin) and curing the structures in the desired shape at temperatures up to 180°C. Moreover, the utilization of the cross-section of the rovings is homogenized and, thus, a tensile strength up to 1400 MPa is achieved for AR-glass fabrics. The article deals with selected applications for facade structures made of TRC, material properties and demands on the textile reinforcement as well as production processes. Furthermore, test results regarding the load-bearing behavior of these selected applications are presented.

Extremely Light and Slender Precast Pedestrian-Bridge Made Out of Textile-Reinforced Concrete (TRC)

Textile-reinforced concrete (TRC) is an innovative composite material which uses mesh-like textile reinforcements and a fine-grained concrete as basic materials. Unlike steel, textiles are not susceptible to corrosion, thus it is possible to minimize the concrete cover to only a few millimeters. As a result, slender concrete constructions can be built, meeting the needs of modern architecture with both economical and environmental advantages.