Eugène Freyssinet

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Marie Eugène Léon Freyssinet (born July 13, 1879 in Objat , Corrèze , † June 8, 1962 in Saint-Martin-Vésubie , Alpes-Maritimes ) was a French civil engineer . He is considered the inventor of prestressed concrete , whose further development and possible applications he was concerned with throughout his life.

Engineer des Ponts et Chaussées

Freyssinet came from a village in the Massif Central , but came to Paris with his parents when he was 6 years old . He studied at the École polytechnique and at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées , among others with Charles Rabut , Jean Résal and Paul Séjourné , and obtained his diploma in 1905.

In his first position as Ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées in the local road administration of the Allier department in Moulins , he built various small reinforced concrete bridges for the mayors of the surrounding communities, who had little money and were happy about his support. Freyssinet did not have to present his plans to anyone for approval and was able to generously disregard building regulations that were hardly applicable to concrete bridges.

In the small, 26 feet wide bridge of Prairéal-sur-Besbre (Allier) on the Besbre ( ) he turned in 1907 for the first time the method to which falsework not be solved by lowering of the finished bridge arch, but rather, the two sheet halves through the apex to push apart attached hydraulic presses and so lift them from the falsework ( French décintrement par vérins ). He later repeated this method frequently with more advanced, very flat hydraulic presses known as vérins plats Freyssinet . World icon

Project manager for François Mercier

By chance, the building contractor François Mercier saw Freyssinet's own design for a bridge over the Allier and was so impressed that he offered the department to build three Allier bridges according to this system at the estimate of the one stone arch bridge advertised. The offer was accepted and Mercier commissioned Freyssinet to completely independently build the Pont du Veurdre , Pont Boutiron and Pont de Châtel-de-Neuvre as reinforced concrete bridges with three openings, three-jointed arches and truss-like elevation of the deck.

Freyssinet initially had a narrow, 50 m wide test arch carried out with an arrow height of 2 m. In order to save costs, only small abutments were made, which were connected to prestressed wires by a tension rod made of concrete - the first forerunner of prestressed concrete .

Some time after the opening of the Pont du Veurdre, he noticed that the crowns of the arches were sagging and the bridge was in immediate danger of collapsing. The creep and shrinkage of concrete were still largely unknown at the time. To save the bridge, he had the arch halves pressed apart with his hydraulic presses until they had reached the correct height again, and the openings were filled with concrete. The bridge was saved - and Freyssinet began to deal extensively with the creep and shrinkage of concrete.

Technical Director of Entreprises Limousin (Procédés Freyssinet)

François Mercier accepted Claude Limousin as a partner in his company, which initially operated as Mercier, Limousin et Compagnie. Freyssinet was drafted into the engineering corps during World War I but was on leave when Mercier left the company in 1916 (he died four years later). As the technical director of the company, now trading as Entreprises Limousin (Procédés Freyssinet) , he built 8 aircraft hangars for the French military at the Avord airfield east of Bourges , today's Base aérienne 702 Avord . This was followed by 31 hangars in Istres and in 1919 a hangar in Villacoublay and concrete ships in Rouen .

During this time he was also involved in the continuation and completion of the construction of the Pont de la Liberation in Villeneuve-sur-Lot , one of the largest arched bridges made of unreinforced concrete of the time. A little later his Pont de Tonneins over the Garonne was completed.

Freyssinet became internationally known with the Orly airship hangars, completed in 1924 , two 300 m long and approximately 90 m wide hangars made of a series of slender, parabolic reinforced concrete arches staggered one behind the other . His halls in Reims and Amiens , at the Gare d'Austerlitz in Paris and his factories in Bagneux , Dammarie-les-Lys and Aulnay-sous-Bois became less well known .

The Pont de Saint-Pierre-du-Vauvray , which opened in 1923, with two thin-walled arches made of reinforced concrete box girders, had the largest span of all concrete arch bridges in the world at 131 m, a record that Freyssinet did in 1930 with the Pont de Plougastel (later Pont Albert-Louppe). For its three arches, he had the largest 160 m long falsework built to date, which was then used for all three arches.

Inventor of prestressed concrete

Patent application from 1928 for prestressed concrete

During these years he also worked intensively on research into the properties and behavior of concrete and the development of prestressed concrete . From the long-term deformation of the concrete, he concluded that high steel and concrete strength and high tensioning forces are required for effective prestressing of concrete. Freyssinet was the first to describe and justify this perfectly and in 1928, together with his partner Jean Séailles, who was more experienced in patent applications, registered the basic patent for prestressed concrete with composite in the prestressed bed.

Since Claude Limousin did not want to invest in the new technology, Freyssinet left the company and devoted himself completely to the further development of prestressed concrete technology from 1929 to 1933. He succeeded in bringing the production of power and lighting masts to a production rate of 50 masts per day for his first licensee, Forclum - but in the economic crisis of that time there were no buyers and Freyssinet was faced with financial ruin.

His breakthrough came in 1934 with the rescue of the Gare Maritime in Le Havre , the terminal building built for the imminent commissioning of Normandy , which sank into the ground at 25 mm per month due to insufficient foundation. He stabilized the building with prestressed concrete pillars, which were initially made at an angle from the outside, then inside the building in sections of 2 m and were driven up to 30 m below the building. The success of these measures earned him immediate international recognition.

In 1935 the Neue Baugesellschaft Wayss & Freytag AG acquired Freyssinet's sole license for Germany to use the prestressed concrete process and continued to research it. In 1938, based on his patents, she built the Weg Hesseler flyover between Beckum and Oelde , which spanned federal motorway 2 with a span of 33 meters .

Advisor to Campenon Bernard

While working on the Gare Maritime in 1935 he made the acquaintance of Edme Campenon (1872–1962), the founder and director of Campenon Bernard , a successful concrete construction company that had just completed the Barrage du Chambon . After intensive discussions, they agreed to use Freyssinet's prestressed concrete system for the Algerian Barrage des Portes de Fer (below the Oued Fodda dam ) and the concrete pipes for the associated 44 km of pressurized water pipes and for large floating caissons for the port of Brest . This was the beginning of a long-term close collaboration on a wide variety of projects, which Campenon and Freyssinet continued until their deaths in quick succession in 1962.

Prestressed concrete with subsequent bond

In the years up to 1939, Freyssinet had various inventions relating to prestressed concrete with subsequent bonding patented, such as B. the necessary clamping jacks and anchoring of tendons with high-strength steel and steel tensions of 400 N / mm². He applied for a total of 75 patents between 1925 and 1956.

STUP - Société Technique pour l'Utilisation de la Précontrainte

In 1943 Campenon Bernard founded the subsidiary STUP - Société Technique pour l'Utilisation de la Précontrainte (roughly: Technical Society for the Use of Prestressed Concrete) in order to give Freyssinet, who is now 64 years old, the opportunity to focus entirely on further development and expansion focus on prestressed concrete.

In the late 1940s, early 1950s a. a. Jean Muller , who joined Campenon Bernard in 1955.

Selection of further buildings

The collaboration with Campenon Bernard related in particular to dam walls in France and North Africa as well as numerous bridge constructions. The important structures that Freyssinet designed after 1945 include:

  • Pont de Luzancy over the Marne , Freyssinet's first long-span prestressed concrete bridge, in which the patented post-tensioning with presses and tendons was used for the first time. Construction began in 1941, but could not be completed until 1946 after the Second World War .
  • 5 Marne bridges (1947–1951) with spans of 74 m made of prefabricated prestressed concrete parts.
  • three motorway bridges Caracas - La Guaira in Venezuela (1951–1953).
  • Felsberg-Berus transmitter (1954–1955): Correction and implementation of the prestressed concrete roof of the broadcasting hall of the Europe 1 transmitter .
  • Barrage d'Erraguène in Algeria (1955–1961).
  • three aircraft bridges at Orly Airport (1956–1958) made of prestressed concrete, namely a bridge with an area of ​​304.5 mx 41 m, with which the runway 08/26 and safety strips on both sides are led over the four-lane N7; a bridge measuring 42 mx 41 m for the parallel taxiway and a bridge measuring 165 m x 41 m for the apron in front of the southern terminal. The bridges were originally designed for aircraft loads of 220 t, but were reinforced in 1968 for loads of up to 360 t.
  • Basilica of Pius X (1956–1958) in Lourdes : the structural design of the flat vault of the underground church, which can accommodate 25,000 visitors.
  • Pont Saint-Michel (1959–1962) over the Garonne in Toulouse .
  • Gladesville Bridge (1959–1962) in Sydney , Australia (advice on planning).

The Phare du Monde was not realized for the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.

Honors

In 1937 the Royal Institute of British Architects granted Freyssinet honorary membership. He was the first president of fib - Fédération internationale de la Précontrainte / International Federation for Prestressing from 1953 to 1958, then its honorary president. In 1954 he was appointed commander of the Legion of Honor and inspector général honoraire des ponts et chaussées . In 1957 he received the gold medal from the Institution of Structural Engineers . Numerous streets, various schools and the Freyssinet Medal of the Fédération internationale du béton were named after Eugène Freyssinet.

Fonts

  • Une révolution dans la technique du béton , Eyrolles, Paris, 1936

literature

Web links

Commons : Eugène Freyssinet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Paul Chemetov: Eugène Freyssinet in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his death (French). On Archives de France .
  2. ^ Obituary (French) in Travaux , July 1962, p. 520
  3. ↑ a b Yves Guyon: l'homme et son œuvre. In: L'Ingénieur – Constructeur, Revue technique mensuelle n ° 134, March – April 1969; Special edition on Freyssinet and Prestressed Concrete ( digitalisat PDF; 17.6 MB), p. 89 (94 in PDF), in particular p. 94 (99)
  4. ↑ Freyssinet later described the first French rules on reinforced concrete from 1906 as completely unusable (cf. la leçon de Freyssinet - Un coup de griffe. In: L'Ingénieur-Constructeur, Revue technique mensuelle n ° 134, March-April 1969; special edition about Freyssinet and prestressed concrete ( digitalisat PDF; 17.6 MB), p. 4 (7 in PDF))
    Meant is the Circulaire du 20 octobre 1906, concernant les instructions relatives à l'emploi du béton armé . In: La Houille Blanche , 1907, p. 148; on www.shf-lhb.org
  5. ↑ P. Lebelle: Ouvrages d'art, Ouvrages maritimes. In: L'Ingénieur-Constructeur, Revue technique mensuelle n ° 134, March-April 1969; Special edition on Freyssinet and prestressed concrete ( digitalisat PDF; 17.6 MB), p. 19 (22 in PDF)
  6. ↑ Les principales inventions d'Eugène Freyssinet on the website of the Association Eugène Freyssinet
  7. ↑ a b Bernard Marrey: Les Ponts Modernes; 20 e siècle. Picard éditeur, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7084-0484-9 , p. 49
  8. ↑ B. Fargeot: Les plats vérins Freyssinet. In: L'Ingénieur-Constructeur, Revue technique mensuelle n ° 134, March-April 1969; Special edition on Freyssinet and prestressed concrete ( digitalisat PDF; 17.6 MB), p. 67 (70 in PDF)
  9. ↑ Bernard Marrey: Les Ponts Modern; 20 e siècle. Picard éditeur, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7084-0484-9 , p. 50
  10. ↑ Bernard Marrey: Les Ponts Modern; 20 e siècle. Picard éditeur, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7084-0484-9 , p. 51
  11. ↑ Bernard Marrey: Les Ponts Modern; 20 e siècle. Picard éditeur, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7084-0484-9 , p. 52
  12. ↑ So the official board on the Pont de Plougastel
  13. ^ Eugène Freyssinet: Hangars à dirigeables en ciment armé en construction à l'aéroport de Villeneuve-Orly (Seine-et-Oise). In: Le Génie Civil , N ° 2145 of September 22, 1923, p. 265 ( digitized version )
  14. ↑ Le hangar "Freyssinet" in Avord; on hangars d'aérodromes
  15. ↑ a b Freyssinet Eugène ( Memento of July 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech.
  16. ^ Halles du Boulingrin
  17. ^ Halle Freyssinet , the former post hall of the train station
  18. ^ Eugène Freyssinet on the website of the Musée des arts et métiers
  19. ↑ La leçon de Freyssinet - Un coup de griffe. In: L'Ingénieur-Constructeur, Revue technique mensuelle n ° 134, March-April 1969; Special edition on Freyssinet and prestressed concrete ( digitalisat PDF; 17.6 MB), p. 4 (7 in PDF)
  20. ^ La gare maritime du Havre on the Eugène Freyssinet Association website
  21. ↑ The terminal building was destroyed in World War II in 1944.
  22. ^ Christian Hoebel: The history of motorway construction in the German Reich between 1933 and 1945; An overview for Westphalia . In: Preservation of monuments in Westphalia-Lippe; Traffic monuments in the 19th and 20th centuries , issue 2/11 (PDF; 5.9 MB), p. 61 (15 in PDF).
  23. ↑ Historique. Dodin Campenon Bernard website, accessed September 7, 2019 (French).
  24. ↑ a b P. Lebelle: Ouvrages d'art, Ouvrages maritimes. In: L'Ingénieur-Constructeur, Revue technique mensuelle. No. 134, March-April 1969, p. 23 (special edition on Freyssinet and prestressed concrete; digital version (PDF; 17.6 MB)).
  25. ↑ Quelques unes des voies ouvertes par Eugène Freyssinet. Association Eugène Freyssinet website (French).
  26. ↑ The STUP later became the Freyssinet company , which in turn later became part of the VINCI group .
  27. ^ Eugène Freyssinet en quelques ouvrages on the website of the Association Eugène Freyssinet
  28. ^ Edward Relph: The modern urban landscape. From 1880 to the present. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 1987, ISBN 0-8018-3560-7 (digitized, English).
  29. ↑ History ( Memento of April 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Fédération internationale du béton / International Federation for Structural Concrete (English).
personal data
SURNAME Freyssinet, Eugène
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Freyssinet, Marie Eugène Léon (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French engineer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Objat , Corrèze department
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1962
Place of death Saint-Martin-Vésubie , Alpes-Maritimes department