Light-Weight Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composite Deck Panels for Extreme Applications
Publication: Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 12, Issue 3
Abstract
Currently within the military there is a need for a universal light-weight bridge deck system capable of supporting extreme loads over a wide temperature range. This research presents the development, testing, and analysis of five different fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) webbed core deck panels. The performance of the FRP webbed decks are compared with an existing aluminum deck and with a baseline balsa core system, which has previously been tested as part of the development of the composite army bridge for the US Army. The study shows that for one-way bending, the FRP webbed core can exceed the shear strength of the baseline balsa core by a factor of 3.2 at a core’s density, which is 28% lighter than the balsa baseline. In addition, weight savings in excess of 30% are shown for using FRP decking in place of conventional aluminum decking. Based on test results and finite-element analysis, the failure modes of the different FRP webbed cores are discussed and design recommendations for FRP webbed core decks are provided.
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Acknowledgments
The writers would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by Major Stocks of the Office of Naval ResearchONR and Mr. Brian Hornbeck and Mr. Ramki Iyer of U.S. Army TACOM. The writers also wish to acknowledge Seemann Composites Inc. for fabricating the test specimens and Webcore Technologies Inc. for the donation of core materials.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 12 • Issue 3 • June 2008
Pages: 344 - 354
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 1, 2007
Accepted: May 25, 2007
Published online: Jun 1, 2008
Published in print: Jun 2008
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