Buildings fibre reinforced polymer composite

Fibre reinforced polymer composite materials for building and construction... 

COBRAE. The objective of COBRAE is to promote research, development, standardisation and application of fibre reinforced polymer composites in rehabilitation, upgrade and new build bridge constmctions and infrastructure applications. 

The well-known possibilities of the use of textiles and fibres in construction have developed into fields of application ranging from geotextiles to fibre-reinforced concrete, concrete reinforcing armatures made of fibre-reinforced polymers, usually carbon fibre composites (CFCs), textile membranes and sheeting and to constructions made of fibre-reinforced polymers as multi-layer composites. The present book is dedicated to the spectrum of building geotextiles are excluded, since they are less commonly used for building construction and are more common in earthworks, transit structures and landfills. 

B. Singh and M. Gupta, Performance of pultruded jute fibre reinforced phenolic composites as building materials for door frame. /. Polym. Environ. 13, 127-137 (2005). 

About 30% of all polymers produced each year are used in the civil engineering and building industries(23). Nevertheless, structural plastics such as fibre reinforced composites have so far received little attention by civil and structural engineers, despite some of their obvious advantages such as lightness, handleability and corrosion resistance. This may be due to reservations on credibility grounds or fire resistance properties, as well as to uncertainty on how to design structures with them. Whilst their mechanical properties are in fact fairly well understood, there are a number of... 

The chapter demonstrates that in spite of the incompatibility between hydrophilic natural fibres and hydrophobic polymeric matrices, the properties of natural fibre composites can be enhanced through chemical modifications. The chemical treatments have therefore played a key role in the increased applications of natural fibre composites in the automotive sector. Recent work has also shown that if some of the drawbacks of natural fibres can be adequately addressed, these materials can easily replace glass fibres in many applications. The chapter has also shown that there have been attempts to use natural fibre composites in structural applications, an area which has been hitherto the reserve of synthetic fibres like glass and aramid. The use of polymer nanocomposites in applications of natural fibre-reinforced composites, though at infancy, may provide means to address these efficiencies. Evidence-based life-cycle assessment of natural fibre-reinforced composites is required to build confidence in the green composites applications in automotive sector. 

From straw-filled bricks through wattle-and-daub buildings down to plywood and reinforced concrete, it is clear that composite structures have always been vital to man and his works. The advent of sophisticated polymers and fibres, and new techniques for combining them, has enormously extended the scope and capability of materials. 

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