Fiber Reinforced Polymer fabric systems utilize carbon fiber (or other fibers like glass or aramid) in a fabric form that is saturated with epoxy resin and bonded to the structure’s surface. Once cured, the FRP fabric behaves like an external tensile reinforcement with extremely high strength-to-weight ratio. Key advantages of CFRP wrapping include:

• High Tensile Strength: Carbon fiber fabrics have tensile strengths in the range of 3,000–5,000 MPa, far exceeding steel rebar, allowing them to significantly increase the load-bearing capacity of concrete members when applied properly.

• Minimal Weight & Thickness: An FRP wrap adds negligible weight and only a few millimeters of thickness to the element, making it ideal for situations where load addition must be limited (e.g. retrofitting slabs or thin walls).

• Flexibility & Versatility: Fabrics can wrap around various shapes (columns, beams, joints) providing confinement (for columns), shear reinforcement (wrapping beam webs or joints), or flexural reinforcement (when applied to tension face of beams/slabs). They are often used to constrain columns and prevent shear failure or buckling during earthquakes by confining the concrete.

• Corrosion Resistance: Unlike steel plates or rebar, carbon fiber materials won’t rust. This makes them suited for harsh environments and ensures that the reinforcement remains durable.

• Ease of Installation: Application is relatively quick: the surface is prepared, primer and epoxy resin applied, then the fabric is laid and saturated. There’s no need for heavy equipment or welding, and work can often be done in-place with minimal disruption.

Workers installing carbon fiber fabric wraps around a concrete beam. The dark gray bands of CFRP wrap are bonded with epoxy, providing external tensile reinforcement and confinement to increase the beam’s strength and seismic resilience. These lightweight FRP systems add significant load capacity without adding weight to the structure.

ZRETE offers high-performance CFRP fabric products, including unidirectional carbon fiber wraps (which have fibers primarily in one direction for flexural or tensile strengthening) and bidirectional carbon fiber fabrics (with fibers in two directions for multidirectional reinforcement). When used with our specialized epoxy adhesives, these fabrics form a composite system that dramatically improves structural behavior. For example, ZRETE Bidirectional Carbon Fiber Fabric provides balanced strength in both warp and weft directions, ideal for shear and torsional reinforcement when seismic forces act in multiple directions. Paired with ZRETE’s JGN802 Carbon Fiber Adhesive (a two-component structural epoxy), the fabric achieves a strong bond to the concrete, ensuring composite action under load.

Products (FRP Fabric Systems):

• ZRETE Bidirectional Carbon Fiber Fabric – High-performance 0°/90° CFRP fabric for multidirectional strengthening of concrete elements.

• Carbon Fiber Wrap – Unidirectional carbon fiber sheet for wrapping columns, beams, and walls to enhance flexural and shear capacity.

• JGN802 Carbon Fiber Adhesive – Epoxy resin adhesive for saturating and bonding carbon fiber fabrics to substrates, ensuring optimal composite action.