Title Participants Abstract "Flexural impact response of textile reinforced inorganic phosphate cement composites (TRC)" "Jan Wastiels, Johan Van Ackeren, Tine Tysmans, Wim Van Paepegem" "This work presents the characterisation of the local low velocity impact behaviour of a high-performance fibre reinforced cementitious composite (HPFRCC) made of phosphate cement and different types of E-glass textile reinforcements. The so called ‘‘energy profiling method” that was used for quantitative characterisation is adopted from Liu et al. (2004) who introduced this methodology on polymer matrix composites (PMC). A series of plates reinforced with chopped strand E-glass fibre mats (fibre volume fraction of 24%) was impacted during drop weight tests, showing that this methodology is as well applicable to textile reinforced cementitious composites. Further, the effects of impactor size and plate thickness were investigated experimentally, and finally the obtained results were compared to literature data for polymer matrix composites." "Industrial processing technique for textile reinforced cement composites with structural use" "Jan Wastiels, Olivier Remy" "The post-cracking hardening behaviour under tensile loading of high performance fibre reinforced cement composites is determined as well by the fibre volume fraction as by the reinforcement structure and its impregnation by the matrix. High volume fractions can be obtained by using a continuous fibre structure in textile form, as is usual for polymer matrix composites. The corresponding processing techniques should thus be similar to polymer matrix composite manufacturing. However, due to the presence of an important powder fraction in the matrix raw material mix, the impregnation of the fibre structure as a whole or on the level of fibre bundles, is difficult. The impregnation process has to be considered as an independent processing step. A new device, called Self Compacting Impregnator (SCI) has been devel-oped. It consists of two parallel grooved cylinders rotating in opposite sense, which squeeze the cement matrix in and through the textile fibre structure by ap-plying a controllable pressure, thus enabling the continuous industrial production of well impregnated textiles, which can be processed and shaped further. Fibre volume fractions of more than 20% can be obtained. Test plates were manufactured by careful hand lay-up as reference, and by SCI impregnation as comparison. Mechanical testing (static tensile strength and fatigue loading) indicate that the proposed processing technique yields superior results to hand lay-up." "Use of Hypar Shell Structures with Textile Reinforced Cement Matrix Composites in Lightweight Constructions" "Ellen De Bolster, Heidi Cuypers, Petra Van Itterbeeck, Jan Wastiels, Willy Patrick De Wilde" "The main goal of this paper is to define a design procedure for modular, lightweight and freeform structures by quantifying the relative importance of serviceability limit states and ultimate limit states. The modular building stones of the freeform structures under study are sandwich panels with a foamed polyurethane core and TRC (Textile Reinforced Concrete) faces, shaped in the form of hyperbolic paraboloids (hypars). The shape of these modular building stones allows the production of structural elements on a reusable doubly-curved mould. For the dimensioning of the global modular structure, two states are important according to the Eurocodes: the ultimate limit states and the serviceability limit states. Due to the lightweight aspect of the modular structure, the serviceability limit states will gain in importance: stiffness and crack formation become important factors, as does the influence of repeated loading. These factors and their influence on the final design of the proposed structures will therefore be discussed in this paper." "TEXTILE REINFORCED CEMENT COMPOSITES FOR THE DESIGN OF VERY THIN SADDLE SHELLS: A CASE STUDY" "Sigrid Adriaenssens, Jan Wastiels, Olivier Remy" "The reinforcement of a specifically developed fine grained cement matrix with glass fibre textiles in high fibre volume fractions creates a composite that has -besides its usual compressive strength - an important tensile capacity. This cement composite is particularly suitable for strongly curved lightweight structures. These building applications do not only benefit from the cement composite's flexible reinforcement and high mechanical capacities, but more importantly they take advantage of the cement composite's fire safety. This paper evaluates the application of textile reinforced cement (TRC) composites in small span shell structures. Omitting the need for steel reinforcement and thus concrete cover, TRC composite shells could be made significantly thinner,and thus lighter, than traditional steel-reinforced concrete shells. The presented research quantifies this material gain by performing the entire design of a case study: a 10 m span TRC saddle shell." "Structural stay-in-place formwork in textile reinforced cement composites for very slender concrete columns" "Evy Verwimp, Olivier Remy, Jan Wastiels" "The increasing interest in the architectural design of columns demands for new formwork and reinforcement techniques. This paper studies the use of textile reinforced cement (TRC) composites as a material for structural stay-in-place formwork of concrete columns. In wet phase, this composite shows similar advantages to fabric formwork for manufacturing freely shaped columns. Hardening at ambient temperatures, the TRC composite formwork allows for facilitated manufacturing of a priori fixed shapes. The TRC composite stay-in-place formwork can moreover replace the steel reinforcement of concrete columns. Eliminating the steel reinforcement, no concrete corrosion cover is required and very slender columns can be designed. This paper evaluates the structural as well as architectural potential of stay-in-place TRC formwork for the design of very slender concrete columns. The influence of the structural formwork on the loadbearing behaviour of circular concrete columns is studied. A design exercise, using these columns in a building structure, illustrates the new architectural design possibilities this stay-in-place formwork technique brings." "Form Finding Methodology for force-modelled anticlastic shells in glass fibre textile reinforced cement composites" "Sigrid Adriaenssens, Jan Wastiels" "The reinforcement of a specifically developed fine grained cement matrix with glass fibre textiles in high fibre volume fractions creates a fire safe composite that has - besides its usual compressive strength - an important tensile capacity and omits the need for any steel reinforcement. Strongly curved shells made of textile reinforced cement composites (TRC) can cover medium (up to 15 m) span spaces with three times smaller shell thicknesses than conventional steel-reinforced concrete shells. This paper presents a methodology to generate force-modelled anticlastic shell shapes that exploit both the tensile and compressive load carrying capacities of TRC. The force-modelling is based on the dynamic relaxation form finding method developed for gravity (in this case self-weight) loaded systems. The potential of the presented methodology to develop structurally sound anticlastic shell shapes is illustrated by four case studies." "Influence of Loading Orientation and Knitted Versus Woven Transversal Connections in 3D Textile Reinforced Cement (TRC) Composites" "Michael El Kadi, Panagiotis Kapsalis, Danny Van Hemelrijck, Jan Wastiels, Tine Tysmans" "As previous research has shown, the use of 3D textiles does not only facilitate the manufacturing process of Textile Reinforced Cement (TRC) composites but also influences the mechanical properties of the TRC. A fundamental understanding of the contribution of the transversal connections in the 3D textile to the loadbearing behavior of 3D TRCs is, however, still lacking in the literature. Therefore, this research experimentally investigates two different parameters of 3D TRCs; firstly, the 3D textile typology, namely knitted versus woven transversal connections, is investigated. Secondly, the influence of the stress direction with respect to the orientation of these connections (parallel or perpendicular) is studied. A clear influence of the orientation is witnessed for the woven 3D TRC system while no influence is observed for the knitted 3D TRC. Both woven and knitted 3D TRC systems show an increased post-cracking bending stiffness compared to an equivalent 2D system (with the same textiles but without transversal connections), yet the woven 3D TRC clearly outperforms the knitted 3D TRC." "Experimental study and benchmarking of 3D textile reinforced cement composites" "Michael El Kadi, Tine Tysmans, Svetlana Verbruggen, Jolien Vervloet, Matthias De Munck, Jan Wastiels, Danny Van Hemelrijck" "Textile Reinforced Cement composites (TRCs) have become a key research topic when it comes to lightweight alternative construction materials for traditional concrete industry. While most of the research performed on TRCs combines a cementitious matrix material with 2D textile fabrics, this paper investigates the mechanical behaviour of TRCs reinforced with 3D textile fabrics. The main goal is to investigate the influence of the transversal fibre that is connecting the fibre layers and is typical for 3D textiles, on the tensile and flexural properties of the TRC. Therefore two textile fabric architectures were compared, firstly an unaltered 3D textile fabric and secondly a tensile-equivalent 2D textile fabrics with equal in-plane textile reinforcement. An experimental campaign in tension and bending was performed on four different TRC layups. When comparing the bending behaviour of the unaltered 3D-TRCs with the 2D alternatives, an increase in stiffness in the post-cracking stage was observed, while no influence was observed in tension. The experimental results were also compared with numerical predictions of the 2D-TRCs to put in evidence the influence of the 3D architecture." "Improving the Anchorage in Textile Reinforced Cement Composites by 3D Spacer Connections: Experimental Study of Flexural and Cracking Behaviors" "Michael El Kadi, Danny Van Hemelrijck, Tine Tysmans" "Textile-reinforced cement (TRC) composites can lead to significant material (and dimensional) savings compared to steel-reinforced concrete, particularly when applied in thin-walled structures such as façade panels, shells, etc. In conditions where the geometrical restrictions do not allow for sufficient anchorage, however, the exploitation of this reinforcement may be suboptimal and the TRC’s mechanical properties may decrease. As shown in the literature, the use of 3D textile reinforcement can lead to an improved anchorage in the reinforcement points and superior postcracking behavior in terms of bending. The question remains as to whether similar improvements can be achieved using 3D spacer connections, inserted post-manufacturing of the textiles. Therefore, this research experimentally investigated the effect of discretely inserted spacer connections on the flexural properties and cracking behavior of TRCs. Six different TRC beam configurations—varying in the placement of the spacer connections over the span—were investigated. Moreover, a comparison was made with two additional configurations: one equivalent 2D TRC system (using the same inplane textiles but without through-thickness connections) and one 3D TRC system using knitted 3D textiles (with spacer yarns uniformly distributed). The four-point bending tests were monitored via digital image correlation (DIC) to visualize the full-field cracking pattern. The experimental results showed that the spacer connections could strongly improve the post-cracking bending stiffness and the modulus of rupture (MOR) when placed close to the free" "Numerical Simulation Of The Bond Behaviour Between High-Performance Textile Reinforced Cement Composites And Concrete During The Double-Lap Shear Test" "Maciej Wozniak, Johnny Vantomme" "Textile reinforced cement composites (TRC) are being extensively investigated to be used in buildings and civil infrastructure. Promising application fields are strengthening and retrofitting of existing structures, seismic design, stay-in-place formwork, etc. A critical characteristic for these applications is the bond behaviour between TRC and concrete. Therefore this paper aims to model the complex mechanical behaviour of the interphase between on the one hand textile reinforced cement composites made of Inorganic Phosphate Cement (IPC) reinforced with E glass fibre mats and on the other hand the concrete that is cast on it. The model has to satisfy two conditions: have an acceptable accuracy to enable design calculations and be relatively-easy computable. To achieve this goal, the authors use the cohesive behaviour implemented in finite element software ABAQUS. The model’s necessary parameters (such as bond shear strength, maximal slippage and slippage at maximum shear stress) are identified by performing double lap shear tests. The results of the simulation correspond reasonably well to the data achieved during the laboratory test despite the simplicity of the model, proving its utility for simple stress states. In the future, the model shall be validated on real-scale structures to verify its accuracy in complex stress state."