Engineered Structures

Technical Services for Architectural Structures

Architectural Structures - Technical Services

Gurit’s structural engineering team has been involved in 3,000 large structures across a range of industries over the last 25 years. The wider technical group in Gurit additionally offers a full range of technical services for FRP materials and fabrication, including formulation and R&D, analytical and mechanical testing, composite processing and prototyping.

Gurit is a world wide manufacturer of FRP materials, and supplies a complete product range for construction of FRP components including:

Epoxy infusion, wet laminating, prepreg and SPRINT® systems
A range of fire retardant materials
Tooling products, tooling pastes and vacuum consumables
Structural adhesives
Reinforcements (carbon, glass, aramid)
Structural core materials

Structural Engineering Services

Feasibility Studies and Conceptual Design	Gurit’s structural engineering team can carry out feasibility studies on using FRP for fabrication of a structure. Various materials, processing and geometric concepts can be considered to determine the most cost effective construction option for the given design requirements of the structure.
Structural Design, Analysis and Optimisation	Detailed design and analysis is carried out using a range of proprietary and in house software which has been developed for design and optimisation of FRP structures. In addition to these tools Gurit has over 20 years of experience using finite element analysis of FRP structures, and currently runs both Altair Hyperworks and MSC Patran / Nastran suites of finite element analysis programs
Laminate Drawings	Gurit has 3D modelling capability using Solidworks and Rhino, and also uses AutoCAD to generate 2D laminate drawings. These drawings show basic laminate along with additional reinforcements and construction details, and can be used by the client to generate shop floor drawings. Gurit also has the capability to produce shop drawings and laminate books.
Material Testing	Once the materials and processes are fixed, Gurit have a number of mechanical test labs, which can carry out a wide range of mechanical testing on composite materials in order to generate characteristic values for final design.
Panel Testing	It is normal to manufacture several test panels which accurately represent the laminates which will be used in construction of the structure. These are built by the composite fabricator in accordance with the project process specifications. This allows testing to confirm the material properties achieved on site.
Quality Control	The properties of a composite material are developed during the process of manufacture and cure. It is crucial to put in place an appropriate quality regime to assure thru-build quality. Gurit’s structural engineering and composite processing team can assist the fabricator in developing a QA/QC procedure for the manufacture of the FRP structure.
Production Engineering Support	In addition to engineering specific components, Gurit is able to provide the services of an experienced composites engineer on-site on a regular basis. Feedback from clients reveals that this engineering presence greatly aids the resolution of design queries.
Proof Tests	Assistance can be provided to perform proof tests and to provide engineering support for the project through to handover. The nature of the support/tests to be performed would be discussed nearer the time and would be dependent on the testing required for the structure.