Structural behavior of concrete arches reinforced with glass textiles

Thin-walled concrete structures with textile reinforcement have a number of advantages over conventional reinforced concrete. This article discusses the manufacturing method and investigates the structural behavior of the arch made of textile-reinforced concrete (TRC). The possibility of manufacturing an experimental arched structure with textile reinforcement is demonstrated. This study includes the arch design, mold preparation and loading test. With the use of a 3D printer, the mold of the arched structure was printed, which made it possible to implement a distributed loading scheme. Three concrete arches including a reference non-reinforced arch and two concrete arches reinforced with glass textiles were designed and tested. The test results showed a slight increase in the strength of the reinforced arch compared to the control non-reinforced arch. The effectiveness of the reinforcement of the arch structure amounts to about 10 % increase in contrast to arches with external reinforcement, where the increase in strength reaches 40–85 %. However, the main advantage of such reinforcement is the significant residual strength of the arch structure, which prevents catastrophic collapse of it. The textile reinforcement continued to hold the failed concrete matrix in contrast to the external reinforcement, where the loss of cohesion leading to delamination could cause the fracture of parts of the concrete.