Carbon fiber composites as a replacement to iron rods in construction industry. The Iron Rods are being used in construction industry as a reinforcement material from decades but they disadvantageous in many ways such as rusting and shorter life time on the other hand polymer composite (carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites) are the game changer now. The composites are lighter in weight and higher in strength and are more sustainable than the conventional ones. please read the presentation for detailed review.

1. Carbon Fiber Rods in
building structures

2. Outline
Building Structures
Building Structures conventional materials
Limitation of Conventional Material
Carbon Fiber Composites Rods as replacement to
Conventional Iron/Steel Reinforcement
Why the Carbon Fiber Rods are the required Solution
Advantageous Properties of Carbon Fiber Rods
Economical Aspect of Selection

3. Building
Structures

4. The basic building structure is a soul of any building ranging from 2 story house to the multi story
skyscrapers.
• Building structures are the skeleton of buildings.
• It Bears and distribute loads.
• Give basic shape to building.
• Protect the whole building under different natural disasters for instance earthquakes.
(a)(b): Conventional Building Structures
a
Building Structures

5. Building Structures conventional materials
Concrete is a major constituent of any building.
• It comprises of cement, sand, crushed stones
(aggregates) and water.
• Provides high compressive strength and has
ability to bear tons of load.
• Concrete has less coefficient of thermal
expansion, and it shrinks with time and causes
crack formation in concrete.
• To improve Concrete properties
reinforcements rods are used in concrete.
Gu, X., Jin, X., Zhou, Y. (2016). Mechanical Properties of Concrete and Steel Reinforcement. In:
Basic Principles of Concrete Structures. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-
Shrinkage and swelling of concrete vs reinforced
concrete with time

6. Building Structures conventional materials
Iron/Steel reinforcement provides following properties to the
building structures
• They distributes the load.
• Enhance the strength and concrete.
• Diminishes the crack formation in the concrete.
• Increase tensile strength of the concrete/steel composite.
Cont’d

7. Limitation of Iron/Steel Reinforcements
- Corrosive nature:
- This thing limits the life of buildings.
- Increase fatigue in buildings.
- Decrease the bonding between concrete and erosion of concrete
initiated.
- Relative Lower weight to strength ratio
- A large amount of reinforcement is needed to provide desired
properties.
Iron/Steel rods Limitations
Corrosion on Iron/Steel reinforcement
Iron/Steel
Reinforcement

8. Production of Iron/Steel Rods
Pictorial Iron/Steel Production flow diagram

9. Limitation of Iron/Steel
Reinforcements
Cont’d
Environmental Impact
- Processing of steel/Iron is a high energy intensive process.
- Majorly energy is produced by following non-renewable resources.
- Burning of fossils fuels.
- Hydropower
- Nuclear reactors.
High
Melting/Processing
temperature of
steel/Iron requires
a lot of energy.
Energy comes from
burning fossils.
Burning of fossils
produces CO2.
CO2 causes green
house effect
Environmental
Changes occurs on
Planet Earth

10. Limitation of Iron/Steel
Reinforcements
Cont’d
Environmental Impact

11. Carbon Materials

12. Carbon materials
- Carbon Materials:
What Are Carbon materials
Carbon is a King of covalent bonding.
As a result, they exhibit excellent characteristics such as
• High strength (4X better tensile strength than steel)
• High density
• High hardness
Materials mainly composed of carbon atoms are known as Carbon
materials.
Source: *Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2022, December 30). carbon. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/carbon-chemical-element
*Carbon Atom details

13. - Carbon Materials Types:
Different types of Carbon Materials
Carbon materials

14. Carbon Fiber
Composites

15. Carbon Fiber Composites
- Carbon Fiber Composites: The carbon fiber composites constitutes of two things
- Carbon fiber: Provides Strength, Flexibility and Lower Weight.
- Polymer Matrix: Hold the Fibers in place.
- Properties of carbon fiber composites Rods
- Non-Corrosive Nature
- Lower density
- Higher strength
- Higher stiffness–weight ratio.
*FIBERREINFORCED COMPOSITES Materials, Manufacturing, and Design, 3rd Edition
Fig: Carbon fiber Structural Components

16. Carbon Fiber Composites
- Carbon Fiber Composites (Rods/ Applications:
- Building structures
- Aero planes
- Automobiles
*Source: FIBERREINFORCED COMPOSITES Materials, Manufacturing, and Design, 3rd Edition
*Carbon fiber-reinforced Polymer Matrix pultruded sections in the construction of a
bridge deck system.
Photograph provided by Strong well Corporation. With permission.)
Cont’d
Carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy suspension and gear box in a Formula 1
race car. (Courtesy of Bar 1 Formula 1 Racing Team. With permission.)
Use of fiber-reinforced polymer composites in Airbus 380.

17. Carbon Fiber Composites Production Cont’d
Ramezankhani, Milad & Crawford, Bryn & Khayyam, Hamid & Naebe, Minoo & Seethaler, Rudolf & Milani, Abbas. (2019). A multi-objective
Gaussian process approach for optimization and prediction of carbonization process in carbon fiber production under uncertainty. Advanced
Composites and Hybrid Materials. 2. 10.1007/s42114-019-00107-6.
Carbon fiber production process Carbon fiber Composites rods production process

18. Carbon Fiber Composites Rods as replacement to Conventional Iron/Steel
Reinforcement
- Iron/Steel have following
demerits
• Corrosive in nature
• Lower weight to strength ratio
• Comparative less in strength
Iron/Steel rods
Limitations
Replacement using
carbon materials
- Carbon fiber pultruded roads gives
• Non-corrosive
• Lightweight
• Very high strength

19. Why the Carbon Fiber Rods are the required Solution
and advantages
• The use of carbon fiber reinforcement in concrete construction
offers several benefits in comparison to traditional steel
reinforcement.
• Carbon fibers (CF) exhibit much higher tensile strength,
considerably lower specific weight, and most importantly in
contrast to steel bars they do not corrode.
• These features enable the building of substantially thinner
structures without compromising load-bearing capacity and
durability while reducing their ecological footprints and making
construction more sustainable and cost-efficient
Typical FRP materials VS mild steel
Imad Shakir Abbood, Sief aldeen Odaa, Kamalaldin F. Hasan, Mohammed A. Jasim, Properties evaluation of fiber reinforced polymers and their constituent materials used in structures – A review, Materials Today: Proceedings Volume 43, Part 2, 2021,

20. Cost
Comparison

21. Economical Aspect of Selection
• However, consider that carbon fiber costs must include manufacturing process
costs, skilled labor costs, and material costs
• In the end, steel is typically a more cost-effective material than carbon fiber.
• Carbon fiber production is a relatively precise and time-consuming process, but
it is well worth it in the end. While carbon fiber components are more expensive,
they are stronger, lighter, and built to last much longer than steel
counterparts.
• Steel and carbon fiber are both extremely strong and, depending on the
application, built to last.
• Both have their advantages and places in industrial settings, and it's safe to