The present invention relates to the development of a standard profile commonly used in the construction sector, which today is usually made of steel material, known as a T-beam or double T-beam.
Such a girder consists of three elongated plates, which are connected to each other in the longitudinal direction and arranged at right angles to one another, has a pressure-stable upper chord and a tension-stable lower chord, also called a flange, and a web connecting the lower chord and upper chord, which is typically arranged symmetrical in the middle of the flanges. There are also U-profiles with a ridge on one of the two sides, or box profiles with 2 ridges on the sides.
The invention also relates to such or similar and other profiles such as:
With such profiles, an optimal load-bearing capacity for the respective application is achieved in relation to the mass of the material used and thus its weight.
In the case of I-beams, the height of the central bar or web essentially determines the rigidity of the beam. Secondary measures for increasing the rigidity are the targeted increase in the tensile stability of the lower flange and the targeted increase in the compressive rigidity of the upper flange, Since such girders are hot-rolled from steel, the upper and lower chords are identical for the sake of simplicity.
The advantage of steel beams of this type is cheap manufacturability in large quantities and reliable load-bearing capacity. Defects are rare in such profiles and can be neglected in practical use. In addition, additional steel parts for connecting beams to other load-bearing parts can be easily welded at the construction site at any time and place as required.
The disadvantage is the extremely high density of steel at 7.8 g/cm3 and the fact that steel production involves large amounts of energy and high CO2 emissions. So far, the only replacement for steel has been aluminum, which is lighter but has an even higher ecological footprint than steel. For this reason, the quantities of mass steel required cannot be produced with aluminum.
For this reason, steel is generally regarded as an indispensable building material, which apparently cannot be replaced even from a climate protection point of view, which is why work is being done on reducing steel with hydrogen, which makes steel even more energy-intensive to produce.
However, in recent reports by SITRA, commissioned by the Finnish government, it is clear that today's levels of steel, aluminum and cement alone account for the remaining amounts of CO2 to be emitted by 2100, if that 2° C. target according to the Paris climate Agreement is to be met. This fact makes it compelling to first reconsider the indispensability paradigm of steel or metal.
EP 106 20 92 and EP 273 94 71 describe how steel and aluminum can be replaced by a combination of stone and carbon fiber laminate (CFRP—carbon fiber composite) if the stone is given the lack of tensile stability by the extremely stiff carbon fiber. The connection between stone and fiber is made with the help of resins, for example epoxy resins or high-temperature stable binders based on water glass and silicone, which are able to crosslink or bond with the carbon material. Under certain circumstances, these connections also produce a prestress which can be permanently built into or through the connection.
The invention describes a technical way of how such a double T-beam can be exemplary designed to transfer the utilization of the CFRP stone composite (CFS—CarbonFaserStein or CarbonFiberStone) to practicable and optimized structures or geometries, as being known in the construction area already. The technical design is shown in
Then the parts to be connected are provided with dovetailing, just as in carpentry wooden panels are prepared with dovetails, which optimize the orthogonal connection of wooden panels. In the case of wood, too, the effect is ultimately used that orthogonally meeting fiber layers are connected to one another in a cross-over or overlapping manner, since butt bonding without geometric overlapping would only be limited to the adhesion of the adhesive, which would ultimately fail quickly due to its insufficient tensile stability. Due to the dovetailing of the transitions, the power transmission from one tension-stable plane to the other orthogonal tension-stable plane is almost completely achieved when the two tension-stable planes, in our exemplary case in
In fracture tests, it could be proven that a double T-beam made of CFS plates can carry similarly high loads as a comparable steel beam, whereby the CFS beam is significantly lighter, since stone with a specific weight of 2.8 g/cm3 is significantly lighter than steel, and stone and carbon cause significantly less CO2 emissions during production than steel. Savings of 30-50% can be expected. The overall construction shows itself to be elastic in the fracture test, without the bonded dovetail breaking up when the beam bends.
In order to ensure sufficient tensile stability in the lower belt, only relatively thin and light layers of carbon are required, which also reduce the total weight in relation to the total volume. The compressive rigidity on the upper chord and in the web is achieved by the stone component. In addition to carbon, many other fiber materials can also be used that have a significantly smaller ecological footprint than carbon fibers. Glass fibres, basalt fibres, stone fibres, steel fibers and flax fibers are also suitable as examples depending on the application. From a technical point of view, however, the carbon fiber is of particular importance because, in contrast to most other fibers, it has a significantly higher tensile stiffness. This applies in particular to graphene-based structures, which are not fibers in the strict sense, but can also be used as reinforcement in the future. Another effective measure to further reduce the carbon footprint is the production of carbon and graphene from sustainable resources, for example from algae oil or other vegetable-based oils from algae or yeasts, carbon fibers from lignin, i.e. from wood waste from paper production, or carbon fibers from synthetically produced methanol using the extended Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and water-gas shift reaction. Graphene can also be obtained directly from CO2 using electrical energy. In these cases, a part of the building material—in the case that the tension-resistant layer consists of carbon fibers or graphene—essentially comes from CO2 sources, whereby the carbon, which previously had a climate-damaging effect in the form of CO2, is now bound permanently within the fiber and thus also in the Building material in solid form. This is one of the reasons why carbon fiber is particularly important as a material with high tensile strength.
One of the many possible versions of the invention describes in
The same is shown for a T-beam in
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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20 2019 004 090.0 | Oct 2019 | DE | national |
20 2020 000 730.7 | Feb 2020 | DE | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/EP2020/000171 | 10/3/2020 | WO |