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Did really egyptians invent FRPs ?

The idea of combining two different materials to make a single, superior composite material is not new. Some of the earliest building materials were composite materials. The ancient Egyptians reinforced their mud bricks with straw to make them stronger. Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRPs) are just the latest version of this very old idea (Iyer and Sen, 1991).

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials are composite materials consisting of high strength fibers in a polymer matrix. The fibers in an FRP composite are the main load-carrying element and exhibit very high strength and stiffness when pulled in tension. An FRP laminate will typically consist of several million of these thin, thread-like fibers. The polymer matrix protects the fibers from damage, ensures that the fibers remain aligned, and allows loads to be distributed among many of the individual fibers in the composite.

There are a variety of fiber types and resins that may be used to create an FRP composite. Fibers are selected based on the strength, stiffness, and durability required for the specific application, and the resins are selected based on the environment the FRP will be exposed to as well as the method by which the FRP is being manufactured. Among several possibilities, the fiber types that are typically used in the construction industry are carbon, glass, and aramid. Aerospace engineers have always searched for ways to reduce the weight of aircraft structures. They developed FRPs as lightweight materials with the strength and stiffness of the materials that they were accustomed to. The automotive, naval, defense, and sporting goods industries (to name a few) have since adopted the use of advanced composite materials on a widespread basis.

FRP is now being used in our industry to strengthen concrete, steel and masonry structures. They compete directly with traditional strengthening techniques like section enlargement, external post-tensioning and steel plate bonding. Steel plate bonding is a method of strengthening a structure by bonding steel plates to the concrete surface in the areas of high tensile stresses.

FRP originally began about 20 years ago in Japan and Europe as a low cost, low maintenance alternative to steel plate bonding.