Manfred Curbach (born 28 September 1956 in Dortmund) is a German civil engineer and university professor. He is a leading researcher in the development of textile-reinforced concrete and carbon reinforced concrete respectively.
Life and career
Manfred Curbach completed his A Levels in June 1976 at the Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium in Dortmund. From 1977 to 1982 he studied Civil Engineering at the Technische Universität Dortmund, specialising in structural engineering. In 1980 he was admitted to the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship Foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany). After his graduation, he took up the scholarship to work for David. P. Billington at the University of Princeton (USA) doing research on "Bridge construction in the USA" and "Robert Maillart".
From 1982 to 1988, Manfred Curbach was Josef Eibl's research assistant, first at the University of Dortmund and later at the University of Karlsruhe, where he also received his doctorate in 1987. In 1988 he started working as project manager at the Ingenieurbüro Köhler + Seitz where he was also a partner from 1994 to 2004.
Since August 1994 Manfred Curbach holds the professorship for the Institut für Massivbau (Institute of Concrete Structures) at the Technische Universität Dresden, which is still his main field of activity today. Since 1997 he is registered as test engineer for structural analysis, specialising in concrete structures. In 2005 he started a new engineering company Curbach Bösche Ingenieurpartner, Dresden. In December 2014 the company CarboCon GmbH was founded which specialises in design, construction, calculation and building with carbon reinforced concrete. Curbach is one of the three founding partners.
Research
Textile and carbon reinforced concrete
Manfred Curbach concentrates on basic research and application-oriented research for the development of textile and carbon reinforced concrete with the aim to establish it in the building industry. From 1999 to 2011 Curbach was the spokesman for the Collaborative Research Centre 528 "Textile reinforcements for structural reinforcement and repair". As part of this research programme, the new composite material, made of high-strength fine concrete and high-performance fibres (made of different materials such as alkali-resistant glass, later mainly carbon fibres), was developed and researched, as well as transferred into practice by pilot projects in cooperation with construction companies.
Since July 2020 Manfred Curbach is spokesman of the Collaborative Research Center/Transregio (SFB/TRR) 280 "Design strategies for material-minimized carbon reinforced concrete structures – Foundations for a new way of building", funded by the German Research Foundation DFG. Involved are the Technische Universität Dresden, RWTH Aachen and IPF Dresden. While previous research projects investigated the fundamentals and the applicability of the new material carbon reinforced concrete, this SFB/TRR investigates new construction strategies for carbon reinforced concrete in a total of 17 subprojects. The aim is that the new material composite carbon reinforced concrete will not only replace the previously used reinforced concrete, but that new ways of construction will be found that are specifically tailored to the properties of carbon concrete in order to really exploit the full performance potential of this novel building material.
Curbach is the head of a consortium of one of ten Zwanzig20-projects, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research with up to 45 million euro. The consortium C3 – Carbon Concrete Composite pursues the goal to introduce a completely new design with carbon reinforced concrete (CarbonBeton).
Further fields of research are the material behaviour of concrete under multiaxial load or at high loading rates.
Impact
Manfred Curbach also works on the subject of high-speed dynamics/ impact for concrete and concrete structures and has established a worldwide recognised centre of competence on this topic.
Multiaxial
Curbach produced significant results on the multiaxial loading of concrete, especially ultra-high-strength concrete, and built up a research group for this experimentally and theoretically very challenging topic.
Bridges
With the organisation of the annual Dresdner Brückenbausymposium Curbach succeeded in establishing a national and international centre and meeting place for bridge construction engineers. This symposium as well as the design, calculation and construction of large bridges, has had a lasting influence on bridge construction.