Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
François Hennebique
Summary
François Hennebique (26 April 1842 – 7 March 1921) was a French engineer and self-educated builder who patented his pioneering reinforced-concrete construction system in 1892, integrating separate elements of construction, such as the column and the beam, into a single monolithic element. The Hennebique system was one of the first appearances of the modern reinforced-concrete method of construction.
Hennebique had first worked as a stonemason, later becoming a builder, with a particular interest in restoration of old churches. Hennebique's Béton Armé system started out by using concrete as a fireproof protection for wrought iron beams, on a house project in Belgium in 1879. He realised however, that the floor system would be more economic if the iron were used only where the slab was in tension, relying on the concrete in the compression areas. His solution was reinforced concrete – a concrete slab with steel bars in its bottom face.
His business developed rapidly, expanding from five employees in Brussels in 1896, to twenty-five two years later when he moved to Paris. In addition, he had a rapidly expanding network of firms acting as agents for his system. These included L.G. Mouchel and F.A. Macdonald & Partners in Britain, and Eduard Zublin in Germany. He was asked in 1896 by Hector Guimard for the terrace of the armory Coutolleau in Angers.
François Hennebique was born on April 25, 1842, in Neuville-Saint-Vaast, France. Benjamin Hennebique, merchant, was his father.
In 1860 François Hennebique became a bricklayer and decided to take to restoration of churches. In 1867 he established this own construction and repair company in Brussels. There François Hennebique learnt about construction with reinforced-concrete according to the system of Joseph Monier.
In 1879 Hennebique for the first time used the reinforced-concrete in a construction.
In 1892 ne established international engineering agency in Paris and registered his first patent for usage of the reinforced-concrete named "Special combination of metal and cement".
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.