Fibre-reinforced polymer FRP composites as structural materials

3 Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites as structural materials 

In the last two decades, there has been an increasing effort to migrate reinforced polymer composites into the construction industry for structural load-bearing applications where they have established themselves as a viable and competitive alternative for rehabilitation and retrofit of existing civil structures, as a replacement for steel in reinforced concrete and, to a lesser extent, for entirely new civil structures. There are many reasons to consider fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites in civil engineering applications. This section is intended to provide a brief summary of these reasons along with the issues that have slowed down a widespread acceptance of these composites in the construction sector. 

The benefits offered by fibre-reinforced composites vary depending on the choice of resin, fibre and manufacturing process. Therefore there is a strong need to optimize the design of the composite since not all of the best properties can be achieved at the same time. By way of summary, the main advantages of fibre-reinforced polymer composites are usually oue or more of the following  

Material Density (g/cm ) Young s modulus (GPa) Tensile strength (MPa) Modulus to Tensile weight ratio strength to (10 m) weight ratio (10 m)  

High strength carbon fibre-epoxy matrix (unidirectionai) 1.55 137.8 1550 9.06 101.9 

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