Victory for ACMA’s Pultrusion Industry Council: ASCE Approves ASCE 74 Design Standard
On May 18, the ASCE Codes and Standards Committee approved the ASCE/SEI 74: Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) Standard for FRP Pultruded Structures – a standard that members of ACMA’s Pultrusion Industry Council worked toward for many years. This is a significant step for the structural applications of pultruded profiles as the design standard becomes a tool for structural engineers to apply composites in construction and infrastructure projects.
Starting in 2006, ACMA’s Pultrusion Industry Council lead the charge to fund the development of an LRFD PreStandard that was jointly issued by ASCE and ACMA in 2010. Since then, the ASCE Fiber Composites and Polymers Standards Committee (FCAPS) conducted 44 ballots and held 21 meetings over 10 years before a Public Comment ballot that produced hundreds of comments to finally resolve all issues and comments.
There was active participation by ACMA Pultrusion Industry Council members on the FCAPS committee to guide the development of the standard to its conclusion. It took a village of everyone in the composites supply chain to achieve this industry accomplishment. ACMA will share the final document when it is published, which is expected later in 2023.
Contact John Busel with any questions.
AASHTO Committee Approves TSC Plans to Update Standard
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Committee on Bridges and Structures, Technical Committee T-6 (FRP) approved the ACMA Transportation Structures Council (TSC) proposal to update the 1st edition of the Guide Specification for the Design of FRP Pedestrian Bridges. A TSC Task Group is currently drafting the updated text to the specification. If you are interested in contributing to or reviewing this important document, contact John Busel.
The 1st edition of this guideline standard focused on truss-type bridges constructed with pultruded profiles when published in 2008. The TSC was instrumental in getting the first edition written and accepted by the AASHTO T-6 committee. Since then, many improvements have been made to the technology and other concepts developed for pedestrian walkways that include pultruded decking and sandwich construction. This updated version will include all the state of the practice technologies and improve other areas of the document to cover design, connections, specifications, and inspection.
Contact John Busel with any questions.