A Mixed Pultrusion and Braiding Process Adapted to the Production of High Performance Cement Composite Beams

The objective of the present paper is the optimization of the behavior of structural elements for civil engineering applications. A specific manufacturing process has been developed (Lamtextress patent) allowing to produce hollow beams made of mineral based pultruded composite plates. The beams are hollow with square cross section; they are realized by bonding together composite plates having the dimensions 200 × 10 × 1 cm3. In order to improve the overall performances of the beams, they are reinforced by braiding technology and hand lay-up wrapping. The shear and flexural performance of the final composite beams can be calculated taking into account different process parameters (e.g. nature of fibers, number of filaments, braiding angle).