Fiberglass structural members 1

[bigmig]

Does anyone here have experience designing with Fiberglass structural shapes? Good, bad or ugly? I was reading about it in a tech journal at lunch and was hoping somone might have some input on things like availability in the western US, install, field modifications etc.

I have a project that we designed for Aluminum at one time, but the price of AL when through the roof so things went to steel. Fiberglass caught my eye because of the weight savings and apparent ability to survive in moist environments (?? or does it?). Thanks in advance.

 

[Teguci]

Fiberglass grating was looked at for one of my projects. The problem is that the strength is not anywhere near enough that of steel grating and yes, the environment we were putting it in even caused considerable damage to the fiberglass grating that had already been installed.

 

[JedClampett]

Fiberglass is great, except it's not very cheap and it's more susceptable to UV damage.
Due to exposure to nasty chemicals, I was asked to support a gallery using fiberglass grating and shapes. The Fibergrate catalogue has some sections and allowables. See the link below. I used the catalogue to design the project, but still asked the supplier to provide calculations. Fibergrate won the project and their engineer did the calculations, caught some stuff I missed and basically improved the project. I was happy. I've seen the same guy's calculations on many projects, so he must know his stuff.
My only caution is there seems to be a race to the bottom regarding the FRP grating. I like to specify very heavy grating (>10 psf), capable of supporting large loads with small deflections. I often get arguments from contractors (who are getting their information from the supplier) that we overdesign the grating. We specified it, that's what we want! You would think that the supplier would like to sell the heavier stuff, but they seem to push the lighter systems.