Prefabricated Thin-walled Structural Elements Made from High Performance Concrete Prestressed with CFRP Wires

Abstract

The innovative combination of prestressed carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) wires and high performance concrete (HPC) opens up promising possibilities in the design of structural elements and load-bearing structures. This enables manufacturing of thin-walled, lightweight, filigree, fatigue resistant and very durable concrete elements with very low raw-material consumption for use in several market niches of the construction industry. Two or more of these advantages should simultaneously apply to the intended application for justifying the higher material costs of prestressing and passive CFRP reinforcements in comparison to prestressing and reinforcing steel. Significant economic benefits are to be found in the areas of maintenance of the load-bearing elements as well as their transport and installation. Recently, a first commercial breakthrough of this novel technique was achieved in the structural and architectural field with the realisation of two large building façades in Zurich, Switzerland using a total of 3000 m prestressed self compacting concrete profiles. In this paper design and experimental validation details as well as several field projects are described.