Composite bridges in Russia

13.12.2010

 On November 24, 2010 in Moscow there was signed the license agreement of exclusive usage of InfraCore® Inside technology on the territory of the Russian Federation between the companies «FiberCore Europe» (Holland) and LLC «Steklonit Management» (Russia). The contract was signed by the international projects director, Mel Foster, «FiberCore Europe» company and the chairman of board of directors, Sergey Fahretdinov, LLC «Steklonit-Management».

 This agreement laid foundations to the serious, largescale mutual project of two companies for production of bridge constructions from polymer composites in Russia. The production will be organized in Tver city, on the production facilities of OJSC «Tverstekloplastik».

 The world experience of construction and operation of bridgeworks (both pedestrian and road bridges) constitutes more than 20 years. The geography of composite bridges is practically the whole the globe: Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. The pedestrian bridge manufactured with the application of composites is present even on Barbados Island (the Caribbean islands).

There are about 300 bridges with supporting constructions from polymer composites in the world. 200 of them are pedestrian and about 100 are road bridges.

The supporting constructions of these bridges are made either of pultrusion profiles connected mechanically or bonded together or of complete “sandwich - constructions”.

As the experience of the operation of such bridges showed both constructions have a number of significant disadvantages.
1. The constructions from pultrusion profiles:
- Are exposed to cracks formation and splitting;
- Have low resistance to damages, leading to the destruction of the whole construction;
- Local damages are impossible to repair in site.
2. Constructions from standard and improved «sandwich»:
- standard – there is the delamination of the laminate in case of local damage;
- improved – there is the destruction on the bonding line of components in case of local damage.

On the base of 20-years experience of construction and operation of bridges with supporting constructions from composite materials as well as huge volume of scientific re-searches and pilot testings the company «FiberCore» developed the unique technology of production of all-composite bridge frameworks on the basis of which there have been constructed and operated, for example only in Holland, - about 20 bridges.

The differential characteristic of bridge frameworks produced by such technology is that in case of any local damage the bearing capacity of the whole construction is being stable.

The experience of operation of the bridges produced by this technology shows their high reliability and what is the most important - practically zero cost of their maintenance.

The project is directed to the implementation of the most modern innovative products for construction and capital repairs of the objects of transport infrastructure that allows significantly improving the current situation of the bridge constructions condition in our country, increasing the operation characteristics and lowering the cost of life cycle of these objects.

For reference:

The company «FiberCore Europe» is the leading world manufacturer of responsible products from composites. The company is located in Rotterdam, Holland. The history of the company’s activity began with the realization of the projects in the aerospace industry, the technologies of which successfully implemented into the sector of civil infrastructure.

The company specializes on the production of supporting constructions from composites: bridgework (including all-composite bridges), flood gates, composite coatings for road bridges, tanks and other unique products by individual customers’ orders.

FiberCore Europe have three registered trademarks InfraCore®, FiberNose®, FiberSmile®.
•InfraCore® - the patented technology of designing and production of bridgeworks and constructions.
•FiberNose® - a new patented technology of designing and production of complex profiles for bridges.
•FiberSmile® - the production technology of highstrength hand rails and fencing from composites. Thanks to this technology it is possible to produce the parts with the surface imitating redwood, teak, copper, bronzwe and other materials.

The company «Steklonit» unifies two production sites as a whole - OJSC «Steklonit» (Ufa) and OJSC «Tverstekloplastik» (Tver).

OJSC «Steklonit» is the leader for products manu-facturing on fiberglass base on the Russian territory. The organization has been created on the base of a state enterprise «Ufimskiy factory of textile fiberglass», established in July 1958. More then 50 years the factory manufactures the products that find its application in many industries: oil and gas industries, road construction and water engineering, railway, mechanic engineering, housing and public utilities and other.

OJSC «Tverstekloplastik» is the big enterprise for production of composites and other products on the fiberglass base on the territory of Russia. The factory was established in 1959 uptown Tver. On December 2, 1965 there was received the first kilo of fiberglass and therefore there was a start of a series industrial manufacturing of the products on the base of fiberglass. At present OJSC «Tverstekloplastik» represents a powerful production complex located on square of 28 ha that provides output of more than 100 items of modern products for different industries.

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