Composite wraps for aging infra-structure

The post war years, with Australia's rapid economic growth, was the period which began the construction of much of the current infra-structure. However, there are now doubts on its durability and structural integrity. Composite repairs and external composite reinforcement, may well be one method for addressing the problems of aging infra-structure. To this end the present paper evaluates the ability of externally bonded composite wraps to increase the load carrying capacity of concrete columns and beams. In this study the failure loads were found to occur when the composite wraps reached a critical strain level.