Research Studies of the Fire Performance of Composite Materials at the University of Manchester

Owing to their lightweight and good corrosion resistance, Glass fibre Reinforced Plastic (GRP) composites are increasingly being used as an alternative offshore construction material to steel and concrete. However, their applications in the building industry are limited due to their perceived weakness under fire conditions and a lack of design information. The fire performance of GRP composites is being studied in a number of places world-wide and this paper reviews some of the research studies carried out by the Structures and Fire Research Group at the University of Manchester, UK. This research has so far been only concerned with the experimental and numerical study of the thermal properties of a variety of composite materials and the thermal performance of different offshore composite systems including panels and pipes. This paper describes the completed experimental programme and their results and discusses the numerical heat transfer modelling technique and the selection of appropriate thermal properties of GRP composites for numerical modelling.