Cost-effective rehabilitation and/or strengthening of steel structures currently demanded by the telecommunications industry and transportation departments. Rehabilitation is often required due to crosssection losses resulting from corrosion damage and strengthening may be required due to changes in the use of a structure. Current strengthening techniques, have several disadvantages including t...

Terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) imaging is considered a nondestructive evaluation method for composite materials used for examining various defects of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites and fire-retardant coatings in the reflective imaging modality. We demonstrate that hidden defects simulated by Teflon artificial inserts are imaged clearly in the perpendicular pol...

Porosity is a result of a deficiency in the production process that could lead into the mechanical degradation of CFRP composite structures. Therefore, some checkpoints for determining its presence during part manufacturing have to be established, verifying that precise threshold values are not exceeded. Currently, porosity characterization is carried out by an indirect way using ultrasonic tec...

This paper investigates the hygrothermal effects on the failure mechanisms in bending of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. Accelerated diffusion testing was carried out by immersion at 50°C constant temperature and 70 bar hydrostatic pressure to study the effects of fresh or sea water diffusion into pre-preg CFRP laminates. Consequently the composite laminates were tested in be...

This paper presents results from Finite Element Modelling (FEM) of steel-concrete composite beams strengthened with prestressed Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) plate. For the purpose of this study, three beams were strengthened using prestressed CFRP plate with three different levels of induced prestressing force. The models were developed using ANSYS FE package. The results of an experi...

Automobile sector is always focusing on enhancing level of comfort, fuel economy, customer satisfaction and safety. Vehicle weight reduction increases the overall fuel efficiency. Use of composite materials has made it possible to reduce the weight of the vehicle, without reduction in load carrying capacity. Now a day's manufacturers and researchers are trying to replace conventional material p...

An automobile industry have an interest in replacement of conventional leaf spring with composite leaf spring to get better performance with less weight. This paper deals with by replacing the conventional leaf spring with composite leaf spring. The dimensions of an existing conventional steel leaf spring of a light commercial vehicle were taken to fabricate the special die which is further use...

Due to corrosion and the continuous demand to increase traffic loads, there is a need for an effective system which can be used to repair and/or strengthen steel bridges and structures. This paper describes an experimental program, recently completed, to investigate the fundamental behavior of steel-concrete composite scaled bridge beams strengthened with new high modulus carbon fiber reinforce...

the aim of this research is to investigate the effect of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (cfrp) composite fabric on monotonic and fatigue behaviors of reinforced concrete beams. to control the failure occurrence, a small notch was induced at the middle span in bottom surface for all of the studied rc specimens. totally 12 beams were tested from which 6 beams tested under monotonic and 6 other t...

Nowadays, advanced composite materials such as carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are being applied to many aircraft structures in order to improve performance and reduce weight. Most composites have strong, stiff fibres in a matrix which is weaker and less stiff. However, aircraft wings can break due to Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) oscillations or material fatigue. Material inspectio...