Light-weight TRC sandwich building envelopes

Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) is a composite material made of open-meshed textile structures and a fine-grained concrete. In order to increase the efficiency compared to glass-fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) the fibers are aligned as two-dimensional fabrics in the direction of the tensile stresses. The application of TRC leads to the design of filigree concrete structures with high durability and high quality surfaces allowing economic savings in terms of material, transport and anchorage costs. Thus, ventilated facade systems have become the state-of-the-art-application for TRC in recent years. Large panel sizes and spans can only be realized in combination with bracing substructures. In current projects light-weight sandwich structures with large spans and compact sections of thin TRC-facings and sustainable insulation cores applied for self-supporting facades and for modular buildings concepts have been developed at RWTH Aachen University. In the paper production methods, developed connectors between the thin concrete shells, test results of sandwich members under bending and shear loading as well as deduced calculation models and first applications are presented.