Drape study on textiles for concrete applications

Textile reinforced concrete (TRC) is an eco-friendly material with a high freedom in design. As soon as complex curved parts are to be designed, the question of the drapability of the reinforcing materials arises. Different process parameters can be modified in the production of the reinforcing textiles which strongly influence the handling and the draping behaviour. To be able to choose a textile structure in the design stage which fulfils the requirements concerning drapability, a new test method was developed. This article describes this test method and shows results of a test series on different textile structures, including a brief discussion of the results. Finally, a transfer to a sample geometry is shown.