• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.723-736
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• 2014

Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) structures are primarily manufactured using hand lay-up or vacuum infusion techniques, which are cost-effective for the construction of marine vessels. This paper aims to investigate the mechanical properties and failure mechanisms of the hybrid GFRP composites, formed by applying the hand lay-up processed exterior and the vacuum infusion processed interior layups, providing benefits for structural performance and ease of manufacturing. The hybrid GFRP composites contain one, two, and three vacuum infusion processed layer sets with consistent sets of hand lay-up processed layers. Mechanical properties assessed in this study include tensile, compressive and in-plane shear properties. Hybrid composites with three sets of vacuum infusion layers showed the highest tensile mechanical properties while those with two sets had the highest mechanical properties in compression. The batch homogeneity, for the GFRP fabrication processes, is evaluated using the experimentally obtained mechanical properties.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.35-48
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• 2020

This paper deals with a comparative study among three different rehabilitation techniques, namely, (i) carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP), (ii) glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) and (iii) ferrocement on the flexural strengthening of reinforced cement concrete (RCC) beams. As these different techniques have to be compared on a level playing field, tensile coupon tests have been carried out initially for GFRP, CFRP and ferrocement and the number of layers required in each of these composites in terms of the tensile strength. It was found that for the selected constituents of the composites, one layer of CFRP was equivalent to three layers of GFRP and five layers of wiremesh reinforcement in ferrocement. Rehabilitation of RCC beams using these equivalent laminates shows that all the three composites performed in a similar way and are comparable. The parameters selected in this study were (i) the strengthening material and (ii) the level of pre-distress induced to the beams prior to the rehabilitation. It was noticed that, as the levels of pre-distress decreases, the percentage attainment of flexural capacity and flexural stiffness of the rehabilitated beams increases for all the three selected composites used for rehabilitation. Load-deflection behavior, failure modes, energy absorption capacity, displacement ductility and curvature ductility were compared among these composites and at different distress levels for each composite. The results indicate that ferrocement showed a better performance in terms of ductility than other FRPs, and between the FRPs, GFRP exhibited a better ductility than the CFRP counterpart.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.93-104
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• 2017

In the present work, the effect of hygrothermal aging on the glass fibre and epoxy matrix interface has been investigated by destructive and non-destructive techniques. The glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite laminates were prepared using Vacuum Assisted Resin Infusion Molding (VARIM) technique and the specimens were immersed in simulated seawater, followed by quantitative measurement. Besides this, the tensile tests of GFRP specimens revealed a general decrease in the properties with increasing aging time. Also, exposed specimens were characterized by a non-destructive ultrasonic guided Lamb wave propagation technique. The experimental results demonstrate a correlation between the drop in ultrasonic voltage amplitude and fall in tensile strength with increasing time of immersion. Hence, the comparison of the transmitted guided wave signal of healthy vis-a-vis specimens subjected to different extents of hygrothermal aging facilitated performance evaluation of GFRP composites.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.10
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• pp.754-759
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• 2011

In this study, the interlaminar fracture behaviors of laminated GFRP composites were investigated, and the results could be used for damage tolerance design based on fracture mechanics. Three types of laminated GFRP composites that can be used as high voltage insulating materials in magnet systems were fabricated in order to study the interlaminar fracture behavior according to the molding process. The values of interlaminar fracture toughness for the VPI, prepreg, and HPL laminate were $1.9MPa{\cdot}^{1/2}$, $1.7MPa{\cdot}^{1/2}$, and $2.2MPa{\cdot}^{1/2}$, respectively. HPL laminate showed the best fracture resistance. The failure modes of HPL and VPI were similar to that of an adhesive joint, and prepreg laminates showed partial cohesive failure mode due to internal voids.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.45-56
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• 2010

Polymer composite materials offer high strength and stiffness to weight ratio, corrosion resistance, and total life cost reductions that appeal to the marine industry. The advantages of composite construction have led to their incorporation in U.S. yacht hull structures over 46 meters (150 feet) in length. In order to construct even larger hull structures, higher quality composites with lower cost production techniques need to be developed. In this study, the effect of composite hull fabrication processes on mechanical properties of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites is presented. Fabrication techniques investigated during this study are hand lay-up (HL), vacuum infusion (VI), and hybrid (HL+VI) processes. Mechanical property testing includes: tensile, compressive, and ignition loss sample analysis. Results demonstrate that the vacuum pressure implemented dining composite fabrication has an effect on mechanical properties. The VI processed GFRP yields improved mechanical properties in tension/compression strengths and tensile modulus. The hybrid GFRP composites, however, failed in a sequential manor, due to dissimilar failure modes in the HL and VI processed sides. Fractography analysis was conducted to validate the mechanical property testing results.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.41-49
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• 2015

The repair of manhole raise has been caused much construction times and disruption of traffic flow, serious environmental pollution from crushed construction wastes, and budget waste due to the repeated repair construction works. In order to overcome such problems, we have developed the new manhole repairing composite structures by using a glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) pipe, which can raise manhole to the regular height of the overlayed road pavement with rapid construction and minimum traffic jams. This environmental-friendly technology is method completed by the methyl methacrylate monomer (MMA) double wide flanged GFRP pipe composite structures in order to raise manhole to the regular height. In this paper, two kinds of the compressive strength tests of MMA mortar composites were conducted and evaluated by a general compressive strength test, and compressive strength test after freezing-thawing resistance test. It was found that this MMA mortar composites will be used for the application of the double wide flanged GFRP pipe composite structures.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.359-368
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• 2013

This paper presents a simplified analysis method using the elastic equivalent modelling not using the global finite element modelling of deck for the basic design GFRP composites deck with cellular tubes or sandwich structural type. In order to verify the validation of the simplified method ANSYS software package is used and compared the results analyzed on the global finite element modelling and the elastic equivalent modelling. And the laboratory testing by 4-point bending is conducted to compare the results based on the simplified analysis method proposed in this paper. The comparison of the results based on the analysis and the testing are discussed. It is found that the presented simplified analysis is applicable to the use in the basic design GFRP composite deck.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.139-142
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• 2002

Recently, GFRP is well known as a structural material for the radome of aircraft. In this paper, we have observed the reflectivity of electromagnetic waves on GFRP reinforced with $\textrm{Al}_2\textrm{O}_3$ woven fabric. The result of the experiment has revealed that the reflectivity of $\textrm{Al}_2\textrm{O}_3$/GFRP composites is remarkably reduced compared with that of GFRP. And it also shows that the electromagnetic wave reflections are greatly influenced by the number of $\textrm{Al}_2\textrm{O}_3$ plies in a specific frequency band. These results are expected to be utilized for the technique of manufacturing a low-reflectivity composite structure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.31-35
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• 2006

Degradation characteristics of filament-winded composites due to accelerated environmental aging have been evaluated under high temperature, water immersion and thermal impact conditions. Two kinds of laminated composites coated by an urethane resin have been used: carbon-fiber reinforced epoxy(T700/Epon-826, CFRP) and glass-fiber reinforced phenolic (E-glass/phenolic, GFRP). For tensile strength of $0^{\circ}$ composites, CFRP did high reduction by 25% under the influence of high temperature and water while CFRP showed little degradation. However for water-immersed $90^{\circ}$ composites both CFRP and GFRP showed high reduction in tensile strength. Bending strength and modulus of $90^{\circ}$ composites were largely reduced in water-immersion as well as high temperature environment. Urethane coating on the composite surface improved the bending properties by 20%, however hardly showed such improvement for water-immersed $90^{\circ}$ composites.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.81-93
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• 2020

The fatigue characteristics of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites were studied under repeated loads using the finite element method (FEM). To realize the material characteristics of GFRP composites, Digimat, a mean-field homogenization tool, was employed. Additionally, the micro-structures and material models of GFRP composites were defined with it to predict the fatigue behavior of composites more realistically. Specifically, the fatigue characteristics of polybutylene terephthalate with short fiber fractions of 30wt% were investigated with respect to fiber orientation, stress ratio, and thickness. The injection analysis was conducted using Moldflow software to obtain the information on fiber orientations. It was mapped over FEM concerned with fatigue specimens. LS-DYNA, a typical finite element commercial software, was used in the coupled analysis of Digimat to calculate the stress amplitude of composites. FEMFAT software consisting of various numerical material models was used to predict the fatigue life. The results of coupled analysis of linear and nonlinear material models of Digimat were analyzed to identify the fatigue characteristics of GFRP composites using FEMFAT. Neuber's rule was applied to the linear material model to analyze the fatigue behavior in LCF regimen. Additionally, to evaluate the morphological and mechanical structure of GFRP composites, the coupled and fatigue analysis were conducted in terms of thickness.