Durability of Concrete Cylinders Wrapped with GFRP Made from Furfuryl Alcohol Bioresin: Fid-Bau Portal

Durability of Concrete Cylinders Wrapped with GFRP Made from Furfuryl Alcohol Bioresin

Eldridge, Amanda / Fam, Amir

Very limited studies exist on the durability of “green” biocomposites, particularly resins, in the context of structural engineering applications. This paper investigates the durability of concrete cylinders wrapped with glass fiber reinforced bioresin made from furfuryl alcohol extracted from renewable sources such as corncobs and sugar cane. Conditioning was achieved by immersion of various groups of glass fiber–reinforced polymer (GFRP)-wrapped $153 \times 305 mm$ cylinders in saline solutions with 3% salt concentration, at 23, 40, and 55°C, for up to 300 days. The groups included control specimens fabricated with conventional epoxy resin for comparison and plain concrete cylinders. Specimens were then tested in axial compression, periodically, at 29, 97, 182, and 300 days. It was shown that control unconditioned epoxy-GFRP and bioresin-GFRP wrapped cylinders had the same strengthening ratio ( $f_{c c}^{'} / f_{c}^{'}$ ). After conditioning for 300 days, the ( $f_{c c}^{'} / f_{c}^{'}$ ) ratio retentions for the bioresin-GFRP was 73% at all temperatures, and were 81, 76, and 76% for the epoxy-GFRP at the 23, 40, and 55°C, respectively. Statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out and showed that the small difference in the 300 days’ strength between the bioresin-GFRP and epoxy-GFRP specimens is statistically significant at the 23°C only, but not at 40°C and 55°C.