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| Techtextil presents designs of the future for building & architecture  It was previously thought that buildings have to have a useful life of at least 100 years. In today's fast-moving world that has changed. Today it is important to gauge the true quality of a building through consideration of its life cycle. This requires analysis of all the stages in the life of a building according to the different aspects of sustainability. The aim is to determine the optimum use of building materials and components, whilst at the same time minimising the consumption of, for example, electricity, heating, water, waste water and materials etc. Minimising the environmental footprint is also part of this. Ultimately it is process of optimisation through which a high, long-lasting building quality is established.At the industry trade fair, Techtextil 2013, companies, institutes and universities will be presenting new developments and applications for the building sector in terms of sustainability. The trade fair will also include lectures and seminars from people in industry, research and science to provide more in-depth information on the subject, while the breadth of the range of applications for technical textiles in building in terms of sustainability is indicated by three new products from research and industry. Membrane construction with energy efficiency This includes the 'Polar bear pavilion', a textile membrane that is self-sufficient in energy and has been created at the Denkendorf Institute of Textile Technology and Process Engineering (ITV). Until now membrane structures have been notoriously bad at controlling heat loss and gain, however working with its partners in industry this research project has succeeded in proving that it is now possible to control these insulation properties. In design terms the researchers adopted the principle of polar bear fur and its different fur-related properties: constructed in Denkendorf, the building has a black coated textile fabric and very porous membrane with a heat transfer layer. When sunlight falls on the building this heat transfer layer assumes the task of heating the air that flows into the space in between. This creates what is to all intents and purposes a flexible solar collector that serves as an efficient energy / heat exchanger. On the south side of the pavilion there are five flexible solar collectors. The warm air produced is transported via the roof to an innovative long term heat energy storage system - another new development of this research project. This storage system is able to transform heat energy into chemical energy and to store it with hardly any loss. This development has been patented by project partner TAO and is able to store sufficient heat in the summer to heat the pavilion in the winter. At the ITV solar test stations it has already been possible to achieve a temperature of up to 140 degrees centigrade. A total of six research partners have been associated with the project from researching and planning the building to its completion: they are the ITV Denkendorf with the project led by Dr. Thomas Stegmaier, the Laboratorium Blum and the companies, TAO Trans-Atmospheric Operations GmbH, TINNIT Technologies GmbH, Wagner Tragwerke in addition to the Arnold Group. PET bottle used for insulation The technical properties of the heat insulation materials used on and in buildings are important, since they must be considered with respect to the requirements of the Energy Saving Directive and standards such as the German DIN 4102 fire standard for example. Ziegler is a manufacturing company and has now received the important German Institute for Building Technology approval for its insulation material made from recycled PET bottles. The insulation material is manufactured from one hundred percent polyester fibres. No chemical binding agents are used and the fibres come from PET bottles that have been appropriately sorted and recycled. It is possible to find these polyester non-wovens in many other technical applications. The non-woven material meets human ecological requirements as evidenced by its Oeko-tex certificate. Due to its rigidity the insulation material can be installed tightly in compact spaces such as for roof insulation between the rafters. The manufacturer offers different basic thicknesses with heat insulation properties between 0.034 and 0.041 W/(m K). The moisture absorption of the insulation material is minimal. Textile concrete Textile concrete is a composite material made from several different components. It uses a textile made from multi-filament yarns. These are joined by a sewing thread according to defined parameters on high performance textile machines, before being impregnated with a coating. The fine grain concrete used consists of specific additives, cement and water. As in the case of concrete itself it is the precise combination of components that is key. According to DIN EN ISO 8402 the quality as a whole must be adapted to the application from characteristics of the individual components. The use of textile concrete for the protection of historical monuments poses a special challenge also in terms of sustainability. In this case it is more a question of securing valuable building fabric for posterity than it is of energy-related issues. Until now the actions taken were limited to looking for possibilities to protect the building fabric from deteriorating using established technologies - often with the use of chemical products such as impregnating sandstone for surface strengthening. The results were unsatisfactory, preservation of the stone figures on Cologne Cathedral is an example of this, since the treatment was not weather resistant and it was not possible to prevent crack formation. For this reason a process developed by the RWTH Aachen University is so important particularly from a sustainability perspective since the historic monument is preserved using resource saving materials. An application that is sustainable in practical terms need not remain limited just to buildings but can also preserve architectural artefacts, such as the neo-Byzantine ceiling mosaics of Aachen Cathedral. A crack in the area of the octagonal dome threatened to destroy the mosaic. The bandage made from textile concrete was planned and executed as part of a RWTH Aachen University research project and is based on the idea of a plate reinforcement. The bandage was manufactured on site by a process of lamination, with the textile carbon reinforcement being incorporated in the same mortar as was used to restore Aachen Cathedral. It has been shown that the crack bandage is able to absorb forces and minimise crack formation. This enables the art historical value of the mosaic to be secured on a sustainable basis. Techtextil industrial trade fair, platform for building with technical textiles It is no coincidence that the use of technical textile products in the building sector is steadily increasing. Depending on specific requirements it is possible to meet the sustainability needs of buildings through the use of technical textiles. The range of applications extends from spectacular architectural superstructure solutions to new armouring possibilities in concrete construction and the reuse of recycled materials. More and more companies are collaborating with research institutes and universities to develop visionary concepts for applications in building construction and civil engineering. Techtextil 2013 (11 to 13 June 2013) is regarded as the leading international trade fair for technical textiles and intensifies their potential applications for architecture and building construction. It is where planners and processors come to find specialist information about the use of technical textiles and non-wovens in construction from the perspective of sustainability. The trade fair takes place every two years and this time focuses on the potential of intelligent textiles for the building sector. write your comments about the article :: © 2013 Construction News :: home page |