Future applications in Carbon reinforced concrete (CRC)

The world of construction becomes smarter. New building processes, such as building information modeling (BIM), automated manufacturing (Industry 4.0) and sustainable building are an integral part of today’s industry. Also, new material combinations, like carbon reinforced concrete, capture more and more construction applications. The number of practical examples of carbon reinforced concrete has increased. However, this is only the beginning, as the development goals have not been reached yet. After the first approved systems, further questions arise, including high-temperature-resistant reinforcement, economic production processes and the vision of an integral planned, automatically produced, and sustainable smart building. In this vision, the embedded carbon reinforcement is part of the infrastructure that enables smart-home applications and pushes the research ahead. For example, pre-pregs of carbon reinforced concrete are being developed, based on well-known carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) applications. The curing process can be controlled and brought to an end at the construction side, days, or even weeks after the pre-fab production has taken place. Automated robots are capable of placing the carbon yarn in the pre-fabricated formwork. So, the typical manufacturing (value) chain is becoming outdated, as the usual rebar or grid manufacturing is omitted

– these are also part of the current developments. Also, mineral coatings for the high-temperature- resistant reinforcement are also under development, and it is showing promising results. Another niche industry revolves around multifunctional pre-cast components with integrated heating and energy storage and load-bearing functions, which are already cheaper than the classic separated components. We lead the C³ carbon concrete composite R & D project and have an overview of the latest forward- looking and visionary development approaches in carbon reinforced concrete.