Carbon Fiber Reinforcement (CFRP): The Cutting-Edge Solution
Structural reinforcement is no longer limited to adding heavy steel profiles or increasing concrete sections. Composite materials technology, particularly carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP), has revolutionized structural engineering, offering solutions where there were once limitations.
Our role as consulting engineers is to determine if this technology is suitable for your case and, if so, design a custom reinforcement project that ensures safety and optimizes material use.
Key Advantages of Carbon Fiber Reinforcement
Choosing CFRP reinforcement over traditional methods offers decisive benefits:
- High Strength and Lightness: Carbon fiber has much higher tensile strength than steel, but with a fraction of its weight. This allows reinforcing an element without adding barely any load to the existing structure or foundation.
- Minimal Spatial Impact: Reinforcements are applied as laminates or fabrics just a few millimeters thick, so they don't alter building geometry, don't reduce clearance height, and don't require major demolitions.
- Quick Installation: Installation is significantly faster than metal reinforcements, reducing construction time and disturbance to building occupants.
- Excellent Durability: Carbon fiber doesn't corrode, making it ideal for aggressive environments (marine, industrial) and ensuring much longer service life than metal systems.
Typical Applications of CFRP Reinforcement
We design carbon fiber reinforcement projects for a wide variety of situations in building and civil works:
- Load Capacity Increase: For slabs, beams, or columns that need to support greater weight due to change of use (from offices to archives, new machinery installation, etc.).
- Structural Damage Repair: To reinforce elements damaged by corrosion, impact, earthquakes, or material degradation.
- Design or Execution Error Correction: When a structure has insufficient load-bearing capacity due to an error in the original project.
- Opening Creation: To reinforce areas affected by new openings in slabs (stairs, elevators) or load-bearing walls.
- Infrastructure: Reinforcement of bridge beams and decks to adapt to new load regulations or repair deterioration.
Our Process: From Engineering to Guaranteed Execution
Our service focuses on the engineering phase, which is most critical for reinforcement success:
- Diagnosis and Calculation: We analyze the existing structure and perform calculations to determine the type of reinforcement (laminates, fabrics), quantity, and exact arrangement.
- Technical Project: We prepare a detailed document with plans, material specifications (we trust in the quality of leading systems like SIKA® CarboDur® and SikaWrap®) and a step-by-step application protocol.
- Bridge to Execution: With our project, you can request quotes from specialized companies. To ensure maximum quality in application, we work closely with urbenis.com, our expert partners in installing these systems.
Related success cases
" We needed to increase the load capacity of a floor slab for a new use and steel reinforcement was not feasible. Their carbon fiber reinforcement project was the perfect solution: fast, clean, and effective.
Architecture Studio in Barcelona
Case: Change of use in commercial building
" The technical assessment they provided for the bridge reinforcement was impeccable. Very detailed and well-founded. They demonstrated great mastery of the technology.
Civil Works Construction Company
Case: Load capacity increase in infrastructure