Technical Textiles for the Building Industry

Use of technical textiles to obtain sustainable self-cleaning building surface

Technical textiles have been studied and implemented in the building industry with great success. In the combination of textiles and building material e.g. concrete, three different approaches can be taken.

1. Textile reinforcement material, for light weight concrete
2. Shaping via textile moulding, for 3D flexible shaping
3. Surface material, such as roofing- and tent material.

The basic aim of the project is to achieve a self-cleaning surface on building materials by the use of technical textiles. Two different approaches to a self-cleaning and/or anti-microbial surface of building materials are foreseen:

1. the use of textiles to alter the building material surface, inspired by the lotus flower’s physical structure which inherit self-cleaning properties
2. application of textile with self-cleaning properties, either application underneath or directly on the building material surface.

Figure 1 Textile imprint on concrete: J. Bakkær Sørensen, I. Høigaard Wonsild, 2009

Figure 2 Self-cleaning properties of a building material surface: M. Spaeth, 2007

Figure 3 Textile fabric for building material reinforcement, produced of glass- and carbon-fibres

Contact

Håkan Torstensson