Prof. Mautner acquires for W&F the General License
Eugene Freyssinet (1879 – 1962), who studied at Ecole Nationale des Ponts et des Chaussées in Paris, is generally considered to be the inventor of prestressed concrete construction. Although a certain P. H. Jackson had already registered a first patent in the US in 1886 and W. Döhring in Berlin in 1888, it was Freyssinet who had the decisive insight into the reason for and the elimination of enormous losses in tensile force. By using high-tensile steel he was able to compensate for the losses in tensile force due to creeping and shrinking of concrete and relaxation of prestressing steel to such an extent that the method became economical.
In 1928, Freyssinet registered his prestressing method with a compressive stress of 400 N/mm² under the headline „Production method for reinforced concrete components“ in France. The term „Prestress“ he first mentioned in 1932. In 1934, Prof. Karl Walter Mautner, a member of the board of W&F until 1933, acquired the general licence for the Freyssinet Prestressing System for Wayss & Freytag, which was the hour of birth of prestressed concrete in Germany. In 1935, W&F introduced the term „Spannbeton“ (prestressed concrete) in Germany and substantiated the effectiveness of the new construction method through numerous tests with prestressed concrete beams.