Today there are about 40,000 River and Autobahn-Bridges in Germany made of ferroconcrete. Many are getting on in years, the corrosion eats away at the steel. Now the TU Berlin is testing a technology that is supposed to take away worries about the corrosive

infrastructure and at the same time save CO₂: a beam bridge made of prestressed Carbon Concrete. One year long the stress tests should run, compare to the picture above. The prototype is manufactured in the scale 1:2. Now the 20 m long prototype will be tested with 600 kg/m load for one year.

The carbon concrete bars can be smaller than the actual ferroconcrete beams, because the Carbon fibers are up to five times stronger then steel! Therefore, steel can be substituted and cement can be saved partly in future.

Cement consumed a lot of CO₂ during production, steel as well! “Construction is responsible for 11% of global carbon emissions, according to a report from C40, a group of leading metropolitan authorities.” „Steel beams support many commercial buildings and an increasing number of homes. Making them is one of the most polluting industrial processes.“

„Emissions from making the cement, steel and rubber materials that are used in construction make up 60% of a building’s emissions taken across extraction, transport and on-site, the report said.”

“Cement alone is responsible for about 7% of the world’s carbon emissions, the IEA estimates.”

Carbon concrete beams doubtless have high potentials!

Sources: VDI News, 21st June 2019, No. 25, Construction, materials, page 20, excerpts from Original from Fabian Kurmann and see for the quotations at the end
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-20/what-s-wrong-with-modern-buildings-everything-starting-with-how-they-re-made

Photo source: TU Berlin/Entwerfen und Konstruieren from VDI News 21th June 2019

Feel free to reach out or explore CFC-Fixtures and Racks for Heat Treatment from High Temperature Concept.