Grants awarded to PolyU-led project on sustainable marine infrastructure

Led by Professor Jin-Guang Teng, Chair Professor of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), the five-year project entitled ‘Sustainable Marine Infrastructure Enabled by the Innovative Use of Seawater Sea-Sand Concrete and Fibre-Reinforced Polymer Composites’ has been awarded more than HK$47.2 million from Research Grants Council (RGC). This is the largest among the five projects selected in the eighth round of Theme-based Research Scheme 2018/19. The project aims to develop the seawater sea-sand concrete (SSC) structures reinforced with fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites (refer as FRP-SSC structures), which will directly use seawater and sea-sand in making the concrete. This innovative steel-free structural forms will effectively extends the life span of marine infrastructure by solving the deterioration problem caused by steel corrosion. Both energy consumption and environmental pollution in the construction process will decrease. The project team will also investigate new methods for the design, construction and performance monitoring of FRP-SSC structures in a marine environment over a service life of more than 50 or even 100 years.