Environmental interactions to composite elements of all-GFRP Kolding Footbridge

Structural integrity of a composite material embraces contributions from: materials science and engineering, processing science, design and fabrication technology. It combines a number of interacting factors: the criticality of the application, the accessibility for and ability to inspect vital parts and components, the intended use including load spectrum and time, the consequences of impact, fatigue, temperature and hostile environment, the nature of inherent flaws, the constituent properties of the material system utilized, and it takes into account human factors. Glass fibre-reinforced polymer GFRP pultruded profiles have great potential in the construction industry, presenting certain advantages when compared with traditional materials, including the potentially improved durability under fluctuating levels of environmental factors. The contribution presents analysis of GFRP composite, acquired from cable-stayed Fiberline Bridge exploited for 20 years in the fjord area of Kolding, Denmark. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments were performed in the GFRP composite bridge material, in order to determine the mass variation and the energy changes suffered by the materials, as a function of temperature and time. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) was allowed to detect thermal effects based on changes in the modulus or damping behavior. Tensile and flexural tests let to observe the decomposition process and had taken information of basic stress parameters of GFRP material used in Kolding Footbridge. Aforementioned analyses of durability are necessary to examine and monitoring for environmentally aged composites bridge elements.