Foundation of the "Deutscher Ausschuss für Eisenbeton" in Berlin
The „Deutscher Ausschuss für Eisenbeton” („German Committee for Reinforced Concrete“) was founded on January 9, 1907 and has its head office in Berlin to this day. Authorities of the German “Reich”, the federal states and municipalities as well as universities, material test institutes, construction companies and the German Portland cement industry were represented on this committee. The committee was under the leadership of the ministry of public works and the committee’s aim was to prepare standardized regulations for the execution of reinforced concrete works throughout Germany.
Wayss & Freytag delegated Emil Mörsch and the former chief executive Otto Meyer to this committee. The funding of comprehensive financial means which were required to carry out tests in all fields of reinforced concrete was provided by authorities and industry. The tests were distributed to all material test institutes and the results continue to be published to this day in a scientific series published by the committee.
In the 4th edition of his book „Concrete-Steel-Construction“, Mörsch published the findings gained from the committee’s tests with regard to bending, axial pressure with bending, shear stresses and the correlation between bending moments and deformation angles. Another important finding was that statically indeterminate reinforced concrete constructions could be calculated in the same way as those consisting of homogenous building material.
In 1916, the committee published the „Requirements for the execution of building structures in concrete and reinforced concrete“, which were consistently introduced in all German federal states.