We’ve all experienced hopping in the car and heading down the highway on one of the bumpiest rides of our lives—cracks in the road here, upheavals there, and potholes everywhere. Road construction and traffic delays are constant. The infrastructure of the entire country has been long overdue for decades. The American Society of Civil Engineers determined that over 45,000 bridges in the country are in dire need of repair, and that about one mile for every five miles of U.S. roads is in dilapidated condition.

To address the transportation issues, along with many other civil infrastructure needs, the United States Congress passed the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden on November 5, 2021. And so the repairs began.

The problems we now face in the restoration of the U.S. infrastructure are the costs to make repairs, and the increased loads upon the nation’s roads, bridges, and other civil structures made from concrete and steel. The infrastructure bill also addressed the idea that the needed retrofitting would improve internal national economic activity, which implies a need to effect repairs sooner rather than later.

Repairing or retrofitting concrete or steel structures costs significantly less than a complete replacement. It also requires less time than new construction. But restoration with the use of steel plates requires heavy-lifting equipment and adds dead load to the structure being repaired. As a solution, the use of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) has gained more attention and has become more prevalent in the construction industry, beyond just the traditional use as a solution for concrete repair. Contractors and engineers are now using CFRP to restore structural stability to steel structures, particularly in strengthening girders, beams, support columns, and piers on highway bridges and overpasses.

Depending upon the extent of the damage to the steel component, so far CFRP has proven to restore the lost load-bearing capacity and to extend the life of steel structures. CFRP also reduces the propagation of stress fractures and increases the overall shear strength of a compromised structure.

The future of CFRP seems pretty solid. As the need for stronger, lighter-weight materials are required to restore the stability of the nation’s infrastructure, carbon fiber will be increasingly used in solutions that involve more than just concrete foundations and retaining walls.

If you want to know more about the effective application of carbon fiber in your repair or restoration project, reach out to us at Carbon Fiber Support. We offer carbon fiber repair kits that work for all kinds of situations.