Experimental research on Textile Reinforced Concrete for the development of design tools

Due to the limited construction experiences as well as to the absence of clear and consolidated design provisions for design of Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC), the application of this material in practice is still very limited. In this paper, the results of an experimental programme are presented, with the aim of contributing to generate basic knowledge for development of consistent design tools. In particular, tensile tests on single textile strands and on the composite material have been performed. The experimental work is completed by structural tests on full-scale composite beams in simple bending. Finally, the experimental observations of the material behaviour and structural response are used to investigate on the pertinence of some simple mechanically-based models, reproducing TRC response based upon the key parameters of the material.