composite fibre scaffold tubing

happyhugenoet

happyhugenoet

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I have to do some research on this

I was in a certain offshore contractors facilities today and noticed a scaffold erected with composite fibre tubing for w@h training.As i am genuinely interested in Scaffolding and a Nosey Baastard i made a point of earywigging and overheard that it has its plusses and its downside.
its lighter than alloy and has no spark potential but has no bending and will crack were as steel and alloy to a lesser extent will have a permissable bending.
has anyone used it or been approached by salesmen regarding it;)
 
Used it for a small trial period , very light but steel fittings crimp the tubes and the tubes blow all over the place in the slightest breeze.
 
Unless we get composite fittings (or strengthened tube) this is going nowhere!!!!
 
@ Happy

Im sure we had a thread discussing alternatives to metal tube, alternative materials were discussed and a brain storming exercise form the thread participates came up with a composite tube ( nurrled ) with would yield to produce the necessary friction to hold the Coupler ( composite )…

Good try but no cigar…not enough research has been done to push forward perhaps, an innovation that to have some milage…

we used red carbon zips up at St Fergus some time ago, the stuff fractured and was confined to the quarantine area...
 
Never heard of it to be honest,
That said as you may guess I have an opinion!

Sounds like a plan but not a plan that will come together in our time in the industry.

If tube has no bending capacity it will not be of use. Even a standard with a vertical axial force applied goes into a bending mode, (hence the lift heights to shorten the tube length) There's an old saying in this game, "if it don't bend it'll break"

regards
Alan
 
We've recently trialed 2 types of GRP tubing, one with composite (plastic) couplers and one which uses normal scaffold couplers. The GRP with the plastic couplers has very low load carrying capacity compared to normal scaffold and is around 6-10 times more expensive than traditional scaffolding. The other type is much stronger (although still nowhere near steel tube) but the couplers can still only carry around half of their normal load without damaging the tube. This scaffold would never replace steel due to the cost and lower load carrying capacity but we are using it in areas such as sub-stations where shorting of electrical equipment is a major issue. Its other advantages are light weight and resistance to corrosion but is does deflect a lot more that steel meaning shorter bay sizes are required which further increases the cost.
 
As Alan has already eluded too, there must be an optimum elastic range built into the product, ductility, yield of tube and couplers under torque…frictional stress
 
The tube is far more ductile than steel meaning it will keep bending under load and return to its original shape. The strength of this type of tube is limited by deflection rather than the permissible bending stress as is the case with steel. Given that it deflects so much, you can't built bay lengths more than around 1.5m - 1.8m or the ledgers deflect too much and become uncomfortable to walk on, even although they are still structurally fine.
 
can you tell me where I an get the GRP material from including the fittings ? has anyone got any technical data on this stuff?
 
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