Processes now being used in SA will revolutionise the Australian infrastructure sector with production of strong, damage-tolerant FRP composite structures under an international manufacturing deal.
On Friday: SIS Managing Director, Nick Wotton, will welcome Hon. Nick Champion MP, Minister for Trade and Investment, Minister for Housing and Urban Development and Minister for Planning, to officially open this state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.
- Celebrate commencement of manufacturing for lightweight fibre composite road and pedestrian bridges and jetties being distributed, and installed throughout the Oceania region.
- In the shift from the Old Economy to the New Zero Carbon Economy, FRP products have a far lower carbon footprint than traditional bridge building materials like steel and concrete. Therefore FRP products are a significant move towards a zero-carbon outcome.
- Main market is infrastructure; road/pedestrian bridges, jetties, wharves, pontoons and lock gates.
- Bridges now under construction, on the factory floor, for top level Australian clients and about to manufacture two bridges for New Zealand.
- Bringing back manufacturing and innovation: Fiberglass Reinforced Polymer (FRP) products patented by InfraCore® Europe and now licensed to SIS for the Oceania Region have enabled SIS to invest in a manufacturing facility in Wingfield.
- This has created jobs and will generate trade opportunities, supporting employment growth.
- The use of recycled plastic waste is a considerable challenge, but we have invested in research that will enable the use of recycled waste elements in the manufacturing of FRP structural decks.
International President of the Institute for FRP in Construction (IIFC), and University of Adelaide Professor of Structural Engineering, Professor Scott Smith, will be commenting on the importance of this new facility to Australia.
This event is the culmination of an intense 4-year program of technical collaboration between Sustainable Infrastructure Systems (SIS AU) and Dutch firm InfraCore® Company, (Rotterdam, Netherlands) a global leader in fibre composite infrastructure.
Aside from creating employment opportunities, with up to 15 new jobs in the first 12 months, cutting-edge technology used in the material will be a game-changer in the way bridges and other structures are manufactured and installed in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
The InfraCore® technology offers a standardized and modular structural approach, which creates proven and validated cost-effective, prefab composite (FRP) structures that are easily scalable, lightweight, sustainable, maintenance-free, heavy-duty, damage-tolerant and load bearing.
Media background: This high-tech process does not use robotic or computerized machines – it relies on meticulous hand laying of fibreglass cloth to a patented design and complex vacuum injection of resins to strict production guidelines developed in Holland. (Vision footage taken during construction is available)
More than 1,400 structures, from pedestrian walkways to high-volume traffic & harbor bridges have been installed in the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, England, France, Italy, Sweden, Norway, China, Canada and the US. The environmentally friendly fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) structures are lightweight and incredibly strong, allowing for spans of up to 36 metres with a 100-year design life and maintenance-free system, based on a composite material of structural glass fibres in a thermoset resin matrix.
