COMPOSITES IN INFRASTRUCTURE

General Applications:
• Fiber-Reinforced Plastic (FRP) shapes: panels, rods, tubes,
beams, columns, cellular panels (highway bridge decks), etc.:
• Cables and Tendons as tension elements (pre- and post tensioning
of structures)
• Beams, girders and cellular panels to support large loads
(vehicular and pedestrian bridges)
• Trusses in a wide variety of structures (bridges,
transmission towers, and industrial plants)
• Columns, posts and pilings to carry vertical loads (bridge
columns, marine pilings, and utility poles)

• Laminates and wraps to strengthen structures:

• Fabrics for external reinforcement (wrapping) of concrete, wood, and
even steel (strengthening, rehabilitation, and retrofit (impact: retrofit-
hardening))
• Laminates (or plates) bonded to beams on the tension side
(reinforcement and strengthening and repair)
• Filament winding of concrete and wood cores (railroad crossties and
utility poles)
• Composite rebars and grids to reinforce concrete in bridge decks and
highway barriers
• Composite cables and tendons to prestress/post-tension concrete
structures (bridges and building)

Motivation for using composites in civil

infrastructure:
• There is an enormous interest on research, development and
implementation of new and advanced engineered materials needed to
alleviate major problems adversely contributing to infrastructure
deterioration worldwide, such as corrosion of steel, high labor costs,
energy consumption, environmental pollution, and devastating effects of
earthquakes. The U.S. Infrastructure received the "grade" of D by the
American Society of Civil Engineers, who estimated rehabilitation costs
of 1.3 trillion dollars over the next five years.

Two most popular applications of FRP in Civil Infrastructure:

• High-performance FRP highway bridge decks (replacement of
deteriorated concrete or wood decks and new deck construction)
• Retrofitting and rehabilitation of concrete structures with FRP
composite (externally wrapping of concrete with FRPs)

Concrete is currently the most widely used construction material and is

likely to remain the predominant material for the foreseeable future

Problem with the use of concrete:

For example, in the UK alone, approximately half of the £110bn
construction output in 2010 was spent on maintenance and
refurbishment which is an eightfold increase in under 35 years.

To overcome this problem of maintenance:

One way forward to overcome the aforementioned problems could lie in
the use of smart, multi-functional construction materials. The term
‘multi-function’ was coined to highlight the ability of a material to
simultaneously serve both structural and non-structural functions
use of Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECCs) as a potential multi-
functional structural material, with specific focus on its self-healing and
self-sensing attributes[1]
An ECC is a ‘damage tolerant’ concrete, exhibiting a high tensile strain
capacity (in excess 3%) and a controllable crack width (<0.1 mm under
service load) [7]. It is envisaged that the use of ECC (e.g. as an
overlay) can resolve two challenges facing our global infrastructure.
  Firstly, its damage-tolerant characteristics (e.g. high tensile strain
capacity and self-healing capability) can overcome the durability
related problems that manifest as a result of surface cracking[2]
 Secondly, the self-sensing functionality can provide details on in-
service condition and detect incipient problems. The self-
monitoring feature can also allow better scheduling of maintenance
programs and be used to determine the anticipated service life[3]

Entry barriers when using composites in construction

For instance, in the USA, two significant penetrations of composites

have taken place in the housing construction market over the last 20
years.
 The use of pultrusion when manufacturing profiles for window and
door frames and the compression molding of glass fiber reinforced
polyester and polyurethane skins for exterior doors. These
applications are quite common and have competitive costs
compared to traditional materials[4]
 The resulting window and door frames are as resistant as metal, but
much more efficient energetically. Just as some architects and
engineers are discovering, FRP composite materials can be used in
a number of infrastructures, such as footbridges, constructing
facades and as reinforcing elements for bridges[5]
 Their use is of significance in the case of facades since dead loads
of steel, concrete and masonry are extremely high, whilst FRPs can
be easily several orders of magnitude lighter. According to this,
these materials require much less support structure compared to
what would be needed if using concrete or limestone. It also allows
more design freedom.

References

[1] Cabinet Office, Government Construction Strategy, UK Gov., London, 2011.

[2] UK HM Treasury, National Infrastructure Plan 2014, UK Gov., London, 2014.

[3] ASCE, 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, 2013.

[4] K. Ozawa, Stock management of civil engineering infrastructure in Asia, in: Y.

Fujino, T. Noguchi (Eds.), Stock Management for Sustainable Urban
Regeneration, Springer Japan, Tokyo, 2008, pp. 1–14.

[5] W.J. McCarter, G. Starrs, T.M. Chrisp, P.F.G. Banfill, Activation energy and
conduction in carbon fibre reinforced cement matrices, J.
Mat. Sci. 42(6) (2007) 2200–2203.