Titel Deelnemers "Selective activation and down-regulation of Trk receptors by neurotrophins in human neurons co-expressing TrkB and TrkC" "Spyros Merkouris" "Understanding the influence of externally bonded TRC on the cracking behaviour of a plain concrete beam" "Svetlana Verbruggen, Tine Tysmans, Jan Wastiels" "In the last decennia there is an increasing interest in the use of external reinforcement for concrete structures made of both Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP) and Textile Reinforced Cementitious composites (TRC). Especially for TRC, one of the main applications could be the crack control within the concrete substrate. Despite numerous studies in this field, the influence of an external TRC layer on the cracking behaviour of the concrete substrate is not yet known. In order to study the basic principles of this interaction, externally reinforced plain concrete beams are experimentally analysed in this paper. More in particular, the influence of the pre-treatment type of the concrete surface is studied, together with the influence of the contact width between the TRC and the concrete. Finally, also a validation of the TRC versus the more established CFRP technique will be performed. The experimental results indicate the need for a pre-treatment of the concrete substrate prior to the application of the TRC, although the exact pre-treatment type has no influence. Additionally, the beneficial influence of enlarging the contact width between the TRC and the concrete substrate on the loadbearing capacity as well as on the crack width are illustrated. These observations in this paper confirm the applicability of a TRC for crack control of the concrete substrate and provide a deeper insight in the basic mechanisms controlling this cracking behaviour." "NDT inspection on TRC and precast concrete sandwich panels: A review" "Nicolas Ospitia, Eleni Tsangouri, Ali Pourkazemi, Johan Stiens, Dimitrios Angelis" "Textile Reinforced Cementitious (TRC) composites have gained recent ttention due to several advantages compared to traditional steel-reinforced concrete, such as concrete usage reductions and design freedom. The mplementation of this technology on a sandwich design offers light-weight nd slender structural elements with superior mechanical performance. espite their advantages, they exhibit a complicated structural and fracture attern rendering their monitoring essential, as only detailed information on the damage modes will lead to understanding their failure behaviour. This review paper reports on NDTs’ application, working principle and configuration, performance and accuracy. Potential future lines of research and advances are discussed." "Comparison between TRC and CFRP as external reinforcement for plain concrete beams" "Svetlana Verbruggen, Jan Wastiels, Tine Tysmans, Silke Puystiens" "Strengthening and repairing existing structures is often more economical and sustainable than demolishing and afterwards rebuilding them. Concrete structures can be strengthened using high performance glass fibre Textile Reinforced Cements (TRC) as an external reinforcement. Until now no evaluation of the cracking behaviour of this system with respect to the established technique of CFRP strips is reported. This paper presents the experimental comparison between both techniques, based on four point bending tests with third point loading, where the crack pattern evolution is monitored with Digital Image Correlation (DIC). A wider TRC external reinforcement retrains the high initial stiffness up to a higher load and reduces the crack widths in comparison with the CFRP solution, designed to meet an equal failure load. These advantages can be attributed to the crack bridging capacity of the external reinforcement." "Study of the crack pattern and its evolution by DIC of RC beams externally reinforced with TRC and CFRP" "Svetlana Verbruggen, Jan Wastiels" "Textile Reinforced Cements (TRC) are emerging as an external reinforcing material for concrete structures. Especially the high fibre volume fraction TRCs are investigated by researchers as an alternative for the already established Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) strips due to their high mechanical performances, their advantages related to fire safety and their relatively low cost. The application of an external bending rein-forcement on a reinforced concrete beam will considerably influence the cracking behaviour of this beam, with potential benefits for the concerning serviceability limit state. An extensive experimental study of this influ-ence and the difference between the different reinforcing materials (CFRP and TRC) is performed in this pa-per. To measure the crack pattern and its evolution, this paper presents the use of the Digital Image Correla-tion (DIC) technique. Based on these DIC measurements the bending cracking behaviour of reinforced con-crete beams with spans of 0.6 and 2.3 meters is studied. For the small scale beams, the paper shows that the TRC-reinforced beams exhibit a similar crack pattern and evolution to the CFRP-reinforced beams, while for the larger scale beams the TRC-reinforced alternative exhibits a more favourable cracking behaviour. The ef-fectiveness of the DIC measuring technique to monitor the cracking behaviour of externally reinforced con-crete beams is hereby also demonstrated." "Bending Monitoring of TRC Sandwich Beams by Means of Multimodal NDTs" "Nicolas Ospitia, Ali Pourkazemi, Eleni Tsangouri, Johan Stiens, Dimitrios Angelis" "Textile Reinforced Cementitious (TRC) sandwich composites consist of two thin TRC facings and a thick insulating core. The thickness of the insulation, that separates the TRC facings, increases the moment of inertia of the composite, benefiting the bending stiffness and loadbearing capacity. However, due to its composite nature, the fracture under service loads is very complex, where a weak interlaminar bond may reduce substantially the performance of the composite. For this reason, monitoring the fracture process of TRC structural elements is essential for the prediction of their service life. Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) techniques allow monitoring the fracture behavior and predict the failure mode from low load conditions. In this study Acoustic Emission (AE), Digital Image Correlation (DIC), and Millimeter-Wave (MMW) Spectroscopy are used to monitor four-point-bending tests of TRC sandwich samples. DIC allows to monitor and measure the surface strain, while AE enables localization and characterization of internal cracking, and MMW detects discontinuities due to defects such as cracking and delamination. Additionally, the interlaminar bond between the TRC facing under tension and the insulating core is artificially weakened in some specimens and tested under the same conditions to show the influence of the bond on the loadbearing behavior of the composite." "Evaluation of the FIB bulletin 14 design guideline for external TRC bending reinforcement" "Svetlana Verbruggen, Jan Wastiels, Tine Tysmans, Sven De Sutter, Maciej Wozniak" "Due to their advantages related to fire safety and their relatively low cost, Textile Reinforced Cement (TRC) composites are emerging as external reinforcing materials for concrete structures. The current design guidelines for external reinforcement are mostly elaborated for the Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) material solutions. Considering the major differences between both the CFRP and TRC materials, the validity of these CFRP design guidelines for the TRC external reinforcement should be verified and eventually the design rules should be adapted. This paper contributes to the evaluation of the European FIB bulletin 14 design guideline for TRC by comparing 2.3-meter-span externally reinforced concrete beams designed according to the FIB bulletin 14 with experimental results from four point bending tests. The results show that the design guidelines underestimate the ultimate load by almost 20 % due to a difference in occurring failure mode (experimental: failure in composite action; predicted: failure by loss of composite action). These observations indicate that the FIB design guideline cannot be used to accurately predict the bending behaviour of a TRC-reinforced beam and thus that adapted calculation techniques are needed." "Influence of Discrete Spacers and Anchorage Length in Long TRC Elements" "Hubert Rahier" "Discrete spacers can be used to connect planar textile layers and create pseudo-3D textile architectures for concrete reinforcement. Preliminary studies on short TRC (textile reinforced cement/concrete) beams have shown that on top of the manufacturing advantages, the use of discrete spacers can lead to improved textile anchorage, resulting in increased mechanical performance of the TRCs. Investigations on the effect of the anchorage length and spacer distribution on the resulting anchorage mechanism in long TRC elements are currently lacking in literature. This research investigated the influence of these parameters in long TRC beams (1200 mm) through a four-point bending experimental campaign on three TRC layups (equivalent 2D, original 3D and with discrete spacers) and two support configurations (350 mm and 550 mm span). The experimental results showed a clear beneficial influence of the discrete spacers on the anchorage mechanism and highlighted the importance of anchorage length in the free (unloaded) region of the TRCs." "Stay-in-Place Formwork of TRC Designed as Shear Reinforcement for Concrete Beams" "Svetlana Verbruggen, Olivier Remy, Jan Wastiels" "In order to reduce on-site building time, the construction industry shows an increasing interest in stay-in-place formwork with a reinforcement function after concrete hardening, such as CFRP formwork confinement for columns. The current combined systems however do not answer the demand of the building industry for a material system that is both lightweight and fire safe. High performance textile reinforced cement (TRC) composites can address this need.They can be particularly interesting for the shear reinforcement of concrete beams.This paper describes a preliminary analysis and feasibility study on structural stay-in-place formwork made of TRC. Comparative bending experiments demonstrate that a fully steel reinforced beamand an equivalent beam with shear reinforcement in TRC formwork show similar yielding behaviour, indicating that the TRC shear reinforcement system actually works. Moreover, the cracking moment of the concrete was more or less doubled, resulting in a much lower deflection in serviceability limit state than calculated. Digital image correlation measurements show that the latter is due to the crack bridging capacity of the external TRC shear reinforcement." "Bending of beams externally reinforced with TRC and CFRP monitored by DIC and AE." "Svetlana Verbruggen, Dimitrios Angelis, Tine Tysmans, Jan Wastiels" "Strengthening and repairing existing reinforced concrete structures is often more economical and sustainable than rebuilding them. The most commonly used technique, externally bonded Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers (CFRP), does not answer the need for a temperature resistant, fire safe and economical solution. High performance glass fibre Textile Reinforced Cements (TRC) can offer an answer to these drawbacks. A validation of this TRC technique against the existing one of CFRP is still needed. The Digital Image Correlation (DIC) and Acoustic Emission (AE) measuring techniques are applied to monitor the bending, cracking and failure behaviour of a reference beam, a beam with CFRP external reinforcement and a precracked and non-precracked TRC external reinforced beam. Four-point bending tests indicate the successful complementary use of DIC and AE and prove that TRC as an external reinforcement for concrete beams actually works."