Ytong
Ytong (official spelling YTONG , [ ˈyːtɔŋ ]) is a brand name of the Xella company in Duisburg for wall blocks made of aerated concrete . Ytong is made by Xella itself and in some countries such as B. Israel and Turkey produced by licensees. The name is derived from the Swedish Yxhults ånghärdade gasbetong and means steam-hardened aerated concrete from Yxhult .
history
As a result of the First World War, there was a sometimes dramatic energy shortage in Sweden. Since the country hardly had its own energy sources, the government tightened the standards for thermal insulation . Swedish scientists have been working on the development of a new building material since 1918, which was supposed to combine high thermal insulation with low manufacturing energy consumption. Other desirable properties were that it should not rot and not be flammable.
In 1923 the architect and researcher Axel Erikson found a method for producing such a building material at the Stockholm Technical University . From a mixture of lime , metal powder and slate , he produced so-called aerated concrete (today: aerated concrete ) for the first time using steam curing . This process can be understood as a successful combination of the process of sand-lime brick production and the production of foam concrete, which is already common . Sand-lime brick, a steam-hardened building block, was already established at that time, and the still “new” foam concrete, foamed normal concrete, suffered from the lack of insufficient strength. The majority owner of the 1879 Swedish Kumla founded and with the removal of large hitherto limestone occur near Yxhult employed Aktiengesellschaft Yxhult Stenhuggeri Aktiebolag, Karl August Carlen , saw great opportunities in the new process. That is why he acquired a production license in 1928 and subsequently invested large parts of his assets in converting the stonemasonry into an aerated concrete plant, so that industrial production could begin in 1929.
The new stone was initially marketed under the name Yxhults Ånghärdade Gasbetong . The combination of low specific weight with relatively high compressive strength and the possibility of simple processing - the material can be cut just as easily as wood, made the new stone quickly popular. The original name was abbreviated to Ytong and registered as a brand name in 1940, making it the world's first registered building materials brand. In 1960 the Ytong plan block was developed, a large-format brick with high dimensional accuracy that could be laid with thin-bed mortar . In Germany this process was further developed in 1958 by Reinhard Liebenow and Manfred Menning.
present
At present, quartz sand , lime, cement , water are used with the addition of a small amount of aluminum powder or paste for the production of Ytong (for more details see article on aerated concrete ). The aluminum powder serves as a propellant ( pore-forming agent ), which has a similar effect to baking powder in cake dough: numerous tiny, self-contained air pockets are created in the raw mixture. The mixture is first poured into large raw molds . After pre-hardening, the semi-solid raw blocks are cut into the desired formats and steam-hardened at approx. 190 degrees Celsius under a pressure of 12 bar.
The company Ytong was taken over in 2001 by Xella International (formerly Haniel-Bau-Industrie) based in Duisburg from the English RMC Group (better known as "Readymix"). The current owner of the Luxembourg holding company Xella International Holdings is the financial investor Lone Star , who took over the majority of the Xella Group in 2017 from the two private equity companies PAI partners (France) and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners (USA), which own the Xella Group took over from Haniel in September 2008.
The annual production of Ytong in Germany in 2005 was almost 7 million cubic meters, which were produced at around 32 production sites. This amount corresponds to the stone requirement for around 125,000 single-family houses . More than half of the aerated concrete production in Germany is sold by Xella under the brand name Ytong, the rest are produced and sold by Porit , H + H International , Wüpor , Greisel, Solbet, Hansa-Domapor and Lemga . In Austria, aerated concrete is almost exclusively sold by Ytong and produced at the Xella site in Loosdorf near Melk with around 80 employees.
literature
- Anne Kitsch, Jan Buck-Emden, Klaus Zimmermann; Jürgen Rehrmann (photographer): Ytong The aerated concrete. A brand makes history , Xella International, Duisburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-038143-0 .
- Kathrin Ankele, Michael Steinfeldt: Life cycle assessment for typical YTONG product applications (= IÖW series of publications , volume 105), on behalf of YTONG AG: IÖW Institute for Ecological Economic Research, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-932092-01-5 .
- Planning documents for residential construction , Ytong AG, Munich 1991, OCLC 258329746 .
- Wolfgang Reichel: YTONG-Handbuch: Gasbeton; Planning, construction and application . 2nd edition, Bauverlag, Wiesbaden / Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-7625-0384-2 .
swell
- ↑ בלוקים, ריצוף לבית, ריצוף חוץ, חומרי בניין | איטונג. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Ytong | Gazbeton sektörünün lider markası. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
- ↑ http://faql.de/etymologie.html at the bottom under “Firmennames, Marken u. Ä. “ Word meaning and etymology. In: German language - questions and answers. Retrieved on August 23, 2012 ( company names, trademarks, etc. section at the bottom of the page).
- ↑ RP ONLINE: Sale perfect: US financial investor Lone Star takes over building materials manufacturer Xella. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
