There are approx. 36,300 publicly managed bridges in Austria. 43 of these were built between 1960 and 1990, a situation that is comparable throughout Western Europe. Increasing traffic loads, increased durability problems and changes in standardization pose great challenges to maintainers, engineers and construction companies alike. The question arises as to how a safe and stable traffic network can continue to be guaranteed in the future. In the meantime, a group of embroidery manufacturers and members of the Smart Textiles Platform Austria also addressed this issue more than 5 years ago. That textile concrete with carbon grid reinforcements can offer potential was known from various successful research projects, especially from Germany. Especially in bridge remediation, however, not only carbon grid structures are needed, but also arch and stabilization structures with different arrangements of radii and fiber strands in order to be able to replicate all load cases and load profiles of a bridge. Of all textile processes, only embroidery technology offers the possibilities to meet these requirements.
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