FRP Designer

A special proram has been introduced in SeismoBuild and it is available from the main menu (Tools > FRP Designer) or through the corresponding toolbar button . FRP Designer provides an efficient solution for designing FRP strengthening of reinforced concrete columns and beams by computing the strength of reinforced concrete members strengthened with FRP laminates.

In particular the software computes the bending and shear capacity of reinforced concrete members at first without FRP laminate strengthening and then with strengthening by FRP laminates specified by the user. This way the software provides a tool for designing the strengthening of a reinforced concrete member against bending and shear and also assess the effects of strengthening with various types of FRP laminates.

The properties of the existing members like geometry, reinforcement, materials, loads and code-related parameters can be easily introduced using a user-friendly visual interface. A large variety of commercially available FRP laminates is available in the software while the user can introduce custom FRP laminate types. Parameters associated to the FRP wrapping like Radius of corners, number of FRP layers etc can also be easily introduced in the program.

The bending and shear capacity of an existing member with and without FRP strengthening can be easily computed according to three available codes. The European Eurocode 8 (Part 3) and FIB 90, the American ACI 440/ACI 318 and the Italian CNRT-DT 200 / NTC 18.

FRP Designer also gives the opportunity to create a full report of the capacity calculations of the strengthened members.

Finally, and due to its full integration with the Windows environment, FRP Designer allows for numerical and graphical results to be copied to any Windows application (e.g. MS Excel, MS Word, etc.).