Design Codes for Cutting Edge Materials

Developing practices for fibre-polymer composites

Fibre-polymer composites are strong, lightweight structural materials made of a resin matrix reinforced with glass, aramid, basalt or carbon fibres. While they are increasingly popular as an alternative to traditional construction and building materials such as steel or timber, fibre-polymer composites lack the industry design standards needed to encourage widespread usage in, for example, buildings and bridges.

Professor Mottram’s expertise as a structural engineer has been utilised in the development of fibre-polymer composites standards in the EU and US, with the end goal of increasing confidence in fibre-polymer composites construction. In combination with guides aimed at practitioners, this research is informing construction practice both in the UK and internationally.

The challenge

Over time, standard design procedures have been developed for routine working with traditional materials, whereas execution of civil engineering works using the newer fibre-polymer composites lacks the historical body of research and development. As a result, new designs can require extensive physical testing and/or design work for safety and feasibility, making investment in fibre-polymer composites seem unfavourable by comparison.

Life cycle costs for fibre-polymer composites structures are approximately 40% lower than using steel, but without standard practices specialist knowledge costs will remain high. To unlock the full benefits of fibre-polymer composites construction in a multi-billion dollar industry, this lack of international design standards needed to be addressed.

Our approach

Through experimentation and computational modelling over 30 years, Professor Mottram’s research has established reliable test results and key insights into the use of structural fibre-polymer composites. Research with fibre-polymer composites shapes and systems has scoped characterization programmes for determining material properties, knowing of member and frame behaviours and to gain understandings for the strengths of connections and joints having steel bolting as the method of connection.

For the evaluation of fibre-polymer composites as building and construction materials, both short and longer term knowledge is used to draft design procedures needed in standards. Reliable design for the durability of fibre-polymer composites structures over design services lives of 50 years is one key topic that Warwick’s research is contributing to. By making authorship contributions to and participating in working groups and committees for the fibre-polymer composites Eurocode and ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) standard, Warwick research has left an important impact in their development.

Our impact

With Professor Mottram contributing to key milestones for both the ASCE and Eurocode standards, these design codes are primed to enable safe, economic and sustainable designs of fibre-polymer composites structures in civil engineering works. With 2000+ downloads, Fibre-reinforced Polymer Bridges: Guidance for Designers, edited and part-authored by Professor Mottram, has been used to design fibre-polymer composites bridges by leading engineering companies around the World.

The North American ASTM D953 standard test method for the determination of bearing strength that is required when designing bolted connections of fibre-polymer composites materials has been updated based on Warwick research. It sees use in the evaluation of entire fibre-polymer composites product ranges in the US - sold both domestically and internationally. Professor Mottram’s input into both standards and engineering guides has already, and will continue to, transform the way fibre-polymer composites structures are designed and executed.

Discover more of Professor Mottram's research

Read more about the challenges of construction using fibre-polymer composites