Smart and sustainable materials for lightweight retaining walls

摘要

Particularly at cramped place conditions, cantilever wall elements are customary to compensate for different ground levels. Among other things, elements from reinforced concrete, which fulfil static requirements, are rather heavy due to the required minimum concrete covers, and are only movable with lifting tools. In the context of an engineering competition, the author designed a smart and sustainable alternative using textile reinforced concrete according to the basic principle "form follows force", which is comparably lightweight and still movable with muscularity. The contribution shows the way from the design idea up to the geometry and dimensioning of the textile reinforcement. An executed prototype, moreover, shows the practicability to a suitable production technology with repeatedly usable molds.