Reliability of high performance fibre composites

Over the last decade, reinforcement made of fibre reinforced plastics has emerged as an alternative to steel reinforcement in concrete subject to aggressive environments. The high rupture strengths of these new materials allied with other attractive properties make them particularly interesting as prestressing tendons. In such applications the reliability has to be satisfactory not only in the prestressing operation but during actual use. This makes it necessary to have a material characterization where both the short term and the long term material responses are considered.