Chemical resistance of carbon, basalt, and glass fibers used in FRP reinforcing bars

Abstract

One of the most important fields of research dealing with the use of carbon-, basalt-, and glass-fiber composites in the civil construction industry is their behavior under various chemical exposure conditions. Fiber-reinforced-polymer composites used as internal and external reinforcement in various structural applications can be subjected to widely differing pH situations. This study investigated the chemical durability of various carbon, basalt and glass fibers. The fibers were immersed in four types of solutions with acid, saline, alkaline, and deionized-water conditioning schemes. The fiber mass loss and surface damage along with changes due to chemical reactions were observed through weight-loss measurements and scanning electron microscopy. A criterion was developed to characterize the performance of fibers as very good, good, fair, and poor. This methodology can also be used by manufacturers as a quick quality-control tool for evaluating the chemical resistance of different fibers prior to large-volume production. The results reveal that the carbon fibers exhibited higher chemical resistance than the basalt and glass fibers based on weight loss and evidence of chemical reactions. Moreover, the determination of the fiber chemical composition before and after conditioning in acid and alkaline solutions clearly shows that the E-glass fibers, which are known to contain boron, were very sensitive to chemical corrosion. The ECR-glass fibers showed excellent chemical durability, even better than the basalt fibers.

Basalt/Glass Fiber Polypropylene Hybrid Composites: Mechanical Properties at Different Temperatures and under Cyclic Loading and Micromechanical Modelling

“…Replacing some parts of glass fibers with carbon or basalt fibers may increase the resistance of the material to chemical corrosion. Article [ 19 ] studied the chemical resistance of carbon, glass, and basalt fibers. The authors used the following different solutions: water, acid, saline, and alkaline.…”

High Throughput Centrifugal Electrospinning of Polyacrylonitrile Nanofibers for Carbon Fiber Nonwovens

“…Carbon nanofiber nonwovens (CFNs) are a promising class of materials with versatile properties for the wider field of energy applications. CFNs exhibit high conductivity [1], (electro-)chemical resistance [2], high surface area [3], flexibility [4], tunable pore-size and-shape [5,6]. These properties render CFNs applicable in filter media [7,8], wearable electronics [4], electromagnetic shielding [9,10], catalyst supports [11,12], and electrode materials [13].…”

Static and Dynamic Performances of Concrete-Filled Braided CFRP Tubular Protective Structures

“…Advanced fibre-reinforced polymers (FRPs) have been used to strengthen and retrofit concrete structures (Lu et al 2006;Lokuge et al 2019) due to their advantages of low weight-to-strength ratio, short installation period, high corrosion resistance, minimal intervention upon the concrete structure and adaptability to curved surfaces (Sun et al 2017;Mohammedameen et al 2019;Cousin et al 2019). Concrete arches have been widely applied in underground protective constructions, and spalling and tensile cracks are two common damage modes, which can be effectively addressed by the FRP strengthening technique (Tao et al 2011;Wang et al 2018a;Skuturna and Valivonis 2016;Wang et al 2018b).…”