Laminate Design of Lightweight Glass Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composite for Electrical Transmission Structure

Transmission structures such as transmission towers or transmission poles were designed to endure multiple combinations of acting force. However, these current structures that were made from concrete and metal are heavyweight materials that cause difficulties in handling during assembly, maintenance and reinstallation purposes. The other problem is vandalism issues on the metallic bracing of the transmission towers. Glass fiber reinforced polymer, (GFRP) is a type of fiber reinforced composites that combine the continuous high strength reinforcing fiber material and lightweight properties of polymeric matrix, thus offers an alternative solution for those problems. In this paper, a laminate design of GFRP samples were simulated using CompositeStar (c) software to determine the mechanical strength and its reserve factor. The composite panels were varied in term of fiber direction and it was designed to withstand a distributed load of 5kN service load in longitudinal (x-axis) and transverse (y-axis) direction on samples with thickness range between 4.00 to 4.20 mm. From the simulated results, it shows that the panels with fiber orientation in bi-direction and quasi-direction display a balance strength and acceptable reserve factor in both x-direction and y-direction. Therefore the properties and reserve factors of laminate design simulated from this software can be used as a benchmark in designing a laminated composite. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.