3600m² polished concrete with glass fibres on tram tracks in Ostend

At the Ostend railway station, the pedestrian zone next to the tram tracks is being re-laid in polished concrete. For the Reinforcement our client and contractor Hofman Polijstwerken uses glass fibres instead of the traditional shrinkage reinforcement.

Main contractor Willemen Infra realises a project of 3600m² polished concrete in the pedestrian zone. In this way a visual difference is made between the tram tracks, which are finished with Exposed aggregate concrete, and the pedestrian part.
For the project, a special composition was used with Hell Granit aggregates from Ghent Aggregates and reinforcement with glass fibres instead of traditional shrinkage reinforcement. Unlike traditional reinforcement nets, the glass fibres cannot cause any problems with the induction cables of the trams.

But fibreglass also offers many advantages when finishing decorative concrete. They are easier to use and cheaper than traditional shrinkage reinforcement, do not curl up and cannot give off rust stains during polishing. Contractor Hofman Polijstwerken used 5kg of glass fibres per cubic metre of concrete.