LeBaMaN (Lightweight Building Material Systems for New Sustainability)

The construction industry faces the challenge of developing climate-friendly and resource-efficient alternatives to traditional building materials such as steel and concrete. The production of these materials is associated with significant CO₂ emissions. The LeBaMaN research project at Hochschule München is dedicated to the development and investigation of a novel hybrid material made from granite and carbon fibres – known as CarbonFibreStone (CFS).

The aim is to assess the potential of this material in terms of strength, durability, sustainability and practical applicability. Potential areas of application lie primarily in bridge construction and in the reinforcement of concrete structures, particularly railway sleepers.

To assess the suitability of CFS, comprehensive experimental investigations are being carried out, including:

•Mechanical properties: bending behaviour, shear capacity and material performance in varying layer configurations

• Connections & fasteners: Development and testing of practically-oriented design details for structural systems in bridge engineering

• Adhesive systems: Investigation of the suitability of various adhesives for the secure and durable bonding of CFS structural elements

• Composite behaviour: the behaviour of the material as a reinforcing element in concrete structures

• Fatigue testing: Fatigue tests on railway sleeper prototypes

In addition, full-scale prototypes are manufactured and tested to validate the material’s behaviour under real-world conditions.

The exhibit shown is a shortened double-T girder, which was developed as a test specimen to analyse the mechanical interlock between the web and the flanges of the girder elements designed for the bridge.

The web of this test specimen was deliberately offset by 20 mm relative to the flanges. During the test, an increasing force was applied to the web from above – until the interlocking between the components failed and the web was displaced downwards.

To enable precise tracking of the deformations, one side of the test specimen was coated with white primer and then marked with a fine black speckled pattern. This pattern allows the use of optical measurement systems (e.g. digital image correlation, DIC), which can accurately record even the smallest displacements during loading.

The QR code provided gives you access to a short video documenting the experiment’s procedure