Maintenance of All FRP pultruded structures. A case Study

FRP composites material in civil engineering are by now characterized by wide applications and case studies. Neverthless, FRP pultruded elements, generally made by glass fibres, have seen limited use in construction and structures for decades. Due to the need to rapidly built new structures and retrofit or rehabilitate deteriorating infrastructure, the potential for the use of fiber-reinforced materials in construction is being implemented in recent years. By the way, a lot of material tests have been proposed in the literature and in the field of the design by testing approach. But not enough investigated are mechanical tests performed on their behavior in relation with maintenance processes such as those proposed below. The study focuses on a case study related to an all FRP structures made by pultruded profiles whose construction has been characterized by maintenance actions and in situ check; the steucture is subjected in their service life to alternating loads or cyclic loads.In detail, this research analyzes structural maintenance process and maintenance tests – still in absence of specific clear technical recommendations - performed using also the Acoustic Emission monitoring technique.