TEXTILE REINFORCED CONCRETE – FROM THE IDEA TO A HIGH PERFORMANCE MATERIAL

Textile reinforced concrete (TRC) is on everyone's lips. But who had the idea for this new building material? This question was the intention of this article, however, the question cannot be answered clearly and the authors do not even claim to be able to give a complete overview. The article presents early approaches for the reinforcing of building materials and structures. It presents selected alternatives to conventional reinforcing steel that has been constantly developed, especially since the 1980s. Then this article takes a much closer look on research and developments in the run-up to the two major Collaborative Research Centres (CRCs, in German: SFB) for textile reinforced concrete in Dresden and Aachen. In these two collaborative projects, the research on the composite material was mainly pushed. The CRCs will be presented in their basic features and it will be demonstrated how the transition from theory to practice took place. Other aspects of this last part of the article are the focal points of recent research initiatives and perspectives for the use and the application of carbon in the building industry.