Domination of Commercial Patents in the Evolution of Early Reinforced Concrete: Case-Study of the Region of Brussels

Hellebois, Armande; Espion, Bernard

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.133-134.119

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The first generation of reinforced concrete (RC) building construction appeared at the end of the nineteenth century and ended with the outbreak of World War I (de Courcy, 1987). At that time, RC was governed by commercial patented systems, among which the Hennebique system was the most exploited in many countries (Borden, 2010;Cusack, 1987;Hellebois and Espion, 2010). However, many of the structural analyses conducted to date have ignored the characteristics of old RC material, such as the use of low bond bars, the particular pattern of rebars (bar ends, bent-up rebars) and so on (Bussell, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Tests up to failure of a reinforced concrete Hennebique T-beam

Hellebois¹,

Espion²

2014

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Structures

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Reinforced concrete constructions of the first generation (pre-1914) form part of our heritage and therefore should be preserved for future generations. Few experimental studies have been conducted on Hennebique continuous structures to estimate the actual bearing capacity of this reinforced concrete system, which was the most popular in many European countries at the turn of the twentieth century. Important information is therefore often missing for accurate modelling of the behaviour of the structure, although structural assessment is crucial in the reuse of any construction. This paper presents results from three bending tests up to failure, carried out on beams from a narrow-gauge railway viaduct designed by Hennebique and built in Belgium in 1904. They provide better understanding of the mechanisms of failure and reveal the main strengths and weaknesses of the typical Hennebique T-beam. The overlapping length of the rebars at the supports is found to be the crucial aspect, even if a large capacity of ductility is observed. Failure occurred owing to slipping of the upper rebars above the support area. This means that attention should be given to detailing. Consequently, localised structural strengthening with additional reinforcements is probably required when seeking to enhance the lifetime of these old reinforced concrete structures.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Tests up to failure of a reinforced concrete Hennebique T-beam

Hellebois¹,

Espion²

2014

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Structures

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“…is bended up at 1/3 of the span, figure 1, [7] and [24], and anchored on the upper side by means of fish-tail expansions. Such a rule is simply geometric and in the archives there is no rational reason for such a choice; the upper bars, therefore, are not proportioned to the negative bending moment.…”

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confidence: 99%

Anchorage of Reinforcement Bars in Hennebique R.C. Structures

Brencich¹,

Nebiacolombo²

2021

12th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions

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The Hennebique system was the most successful among the patented systems in the pre-code period even though the design rules were not completely clear. Anchorage of the reinforcement is one of these unknown aspects and how it was calculated, and if it was calculated at all, is still today not clear. For this reason, the efficiency of the anchorages is one of the major issues when dealing with retrofitting a Hennebique structure or when its safety needs to be evaluated. In this paper a series of tests have been performed on the typical Hennebique an-chorages for reinforcing bars (fish-tails) and for the plate stirrups (bended ends) that were used. Different concrete types have been used so that either the collapse mechanisms of the anchor-ages and their ultimate strength may be identified. INTRODUCTIONEven though François Hennebique was not the first to deal with concrete and reinforcing bars, no doubt he was one of those who most affected the first years of reinforced concrete constructions [1][2][3][4]. His patent, although unclear in its theoretical basis and in several technological aspects, in many countries was the most exploited system in the first pioneering period of r.c. constructions [5-7] that ends approx. with WWI [8]. If the Hennebique system did not find space in Germany [9], it was used in U.K. due to the cooperation with Mouchel [5] and in Spain with Rivera [10] while in other countries, such as France [11], Belgium [4] and Italy [11][12][13][14] it remained the leading building system for a couple of decades.Even though the first codes in Europe were issued before WWI, in 1902 for Switzerland, in 1907 for Italy and France [15] and in 1915 for Russia [16], it took more than a decade for the patent system to be substituted by a rational approach to r.c. design. This is mainly true for those countries in which the patents remained valid till their natural expiration, such as Italy and Spain. The outcome is that Hennebique structures, or Hennebique-like structures, built till approx. the '20s, remained un-engineered to a large extent.A. Brencich, M. Nebiacolombo 2 Nowadays warehouses, industrial facilities, a large number of bridges and buildings, either residential and public, built according to the Hennebique system, are in service. For many of them retrofitting is needed due to several reasons, such as material degradation, re-functioning and, mainly for strategic buildings such as schools, hospitals and public offices, for their seismic upgrade.The intrinsic weaknesses of the early reinforced concrete structures, among which the Hennebique system plays the major role, is well known and addressed by several authors [4,[17][18][19][20][21][22]. The two main issues need specific attention: i) concrete compressive strength, affecting the bending capacity of the beams; ii) shear capacity, which depends on the amount of shear reinforcement and on the efficiency of its anchorage.This paper addresses a specific problem: the anchorage performance of either bending and shear reinforcing bars. Due to the r...

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Anchorage of reinforcement bars in Hennebique structures

Brencich

Nebiacolombo

2020

Construction and Building Materials

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Domination of Commercial Patents in the Evolution of Early Reinforced Concrete: Case-Study of the Region of Brussels

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Tests up to failure of a reinforced concrete Hennebique T-beam

Tests up to failure of a reinforced concrete Hennebique T-beam

Anchorage of Reinforcement Bars in Hennebique R.C. Structures

Anchorage of reinforcement bars in Hennebique structures

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