Production concepts for textile reinforcements made of 50K carbon filament yarn for civil engineering applications: Fid-Bau Portal

Production concepts for textile reinforcements made of 50K carbon filament yarn for civil engineering applications

Berger, Ulrike / Hausding, Jan / Cherif, Chokri / Quinonens, Vladimir / Plaggenborg, Bernhard / Zeidler, Gert / Weiland, Silvio

Abstract

Textile reinforcements made of Carbon Filament (CF) yarns provide a practical and versatile solution for repairing and reinforcing buildings. The most critical factor to be addressed when working with this material is the labor effort, which depends on the load to be carried, and therefore the number of reinforcing layers to be laid. The work on the building site is the main part of the overall costs. By using CF-yarns with a higher number of individual fibers (up to 50000/50K) it is possible to reduce costs compared to conventional CF (12000/12K fibers) or glass filament yarns, while reducing the number of layers. Processing 50K CF-yarns on regular stitch-bonding machines causes increased damage and abrasion of the machines. A new modular machine concept is developed, to provide fast and secure processing of 50K CF-yarns and integration of additional work steps. Besides, the paper presents testing results of the textile reinforced concrete. Relatively inexpensive 50K CF-yarns are highly feasible as reinforcement fibers for the TRC (Textile Reinforced Concrete). With the usage of these yarns, the number of layers to be embedded is significantly less. Hence, the construction and textile costs are reduced due to therein involved less material and their costs. For an efficient usage of reinforcement through 50K CF-textiles, an optimized production process is required. This can now be realized through the modular MALITRONIC multiaxial SBM (Stitch-Bonding Machine) from KARL MAYER Textilmaschinenfabrik GmbH (Germany). The modification of the machine elements for handling filament yarns sensitive to lateral force with large number of filaments and the integration of coating and drying will result in the production of a qualitative grid like SBT from 50K CF-yarns. There will be a significant increase in the textile reinforced concrete tensile strength and also reduction in the number of layers required in comparison to the current test result of the strain specimen test. The results show that the fiber ultimate strength of the fiber is independent of the fiber volume. The breaking strength of the 12K CF-yarn is higher than the 50K CF-yarns. This is due to the fiber production process and also the usage of the 12K CF-yarn optimized machine for the production of 50K CF-yarns. The analysis of the specimen tensile strength illustrates the advantage of the 50K CF-textiles over the 12K CF-textiles. A three layered 50K textile strain specimen has double the tensile strength as compared to a textile specimen with 12K. TRC is presently used for renovation and strengthening works. Due to its small, fine crack properties, TRC could also be used for the external surface and as a water proof material. Besides, it also provides a corrosion free alternative compared to ferroconcrete.