Carbon Fibre Strengthening Newcastle

Carbon fibre strengthening in Newcastle: Carbon fibre strengthening installed to the engineer's design

• Carbon fibre strengthening installed to the engineer's design
• Slab, beam, column and wall capacity put back, no new concrete
• Cover meter, moisture readings and pull off testing first
• Adhesive mixed by weight, plate seated and rolled to thickness
• Temperature and humidity written down, records handed over
• We install to the design, we do not design or certify it

Yes. We install carbon fibre strengthening in Newcastle. Engineer designed, bonded to the concrete by our own crew, and handed over with the records to certify it.

If a slab, beam, column or wall in Newcastle has to carry more than it was built for, carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) bonded to the outside of the concrete puts the capacity back without new concrete, steel plates or lost headroom. Perfect Concrete Care installs it on commercial, health, education, industrial and infrastructure structures. Send us the engineer's drawings and we will price the installation and do the work.

Newcastle enquiries: call 02 8015 6398 or use the form at the bottom of this page. Our Sydney team run the job from our Marrickville base, and Hunter jobs are run as a block rather than a day trip.

When Newcastle projects need it

A new penetration. A hole cut through a slab for a stair, a lift, a riser or services takes capacity out of the slab around it. Strengthening puts it back. Where the slab is post-tensioned this pairs with our tendon truncation work, so the crew that opens the slab is the crew that restores it.

A change of use. Office to plant room, retail to gym, a car park taking heavier vehicles, a warehouse mezzanine taking racking. The design load goes up and the slab does not.

New plant. Chillers, switchboards, generators, lift machinery or medical equipment landing a point load the structure was never designed for.

A defect or shortfall. Reinforcement short, misplaced or corroded, or an existing structure that does not match the drawings. Combined with our concrete repair work where the concrete itself needs fixing first.

Heritage and occupied buildings. Where you cannot add mass, cannot prop for weeks and cannot change the look of the structure, external bonding is often the only workable option.

Where we do this in Newcastle

Newcastle CBD and Honeysuckle, John Hunter and the health precinct, the university, Kotara and Charlestown retail, Mayfield and Carrington industrial, Lake Macquarie, Maitland and the Hunter. We work in live buildings, after hours and in staged areas so a hospital, a school or a trading tenancy keeps operating around us.

How we install it

Read the design first. Plate type and width, number of layers, lap and anchorage lengths and the sequence all come from your engineer. We build to it and query anything that does not stack up on site before we start.

Check the substrate. Cover meter and hammer survey for delamination, moisture readings, and pull off testing where the design calls for a minimum tensile strength. Carbon fibre does nothing on weak, dusty or contaminated concrete, so this step decides the job. If you do not yet know what is in the slab, start with concrete scanning.

Repair, then prepare. Spalls, honeycombing and corroded steel are repaired and cured. The bond area is ground to the profile the system requires and every trace of dust removed. Set out is marked and checked against the drawing.

Bond and record. Adhesive mixed by weight, applied to plate and substrate, plate seated and rolled to the specified thickness. Ambient and substrate temperature and humidity are written down at the time of application. Then the system is encapsulated or rendered as specified and the records handed over.

What we do not do

We do not design or certify the strengthening. An installer who also sells the design has a reason to specify more of it, so we stay the contractor your engineer is happy to hand the work to. We also do not do domestic work. If you are a structural engineer, builder, facilities manager, strata manager or head contractor with a commercial structure that needs capacity put back, you are in the right place.

Common questions

Do you design the strengthening?

No. Your structural engineer designs it, specifies the plate or fabric, the layout, the layers and the anchorage, and signs off the finished work. We install to that design and hand over the records. If you do not have an engineer yet, we can point you at ones we have worked with.

How long does a carbon fibre job take in Newcastle?

Most slab penetration and beam strengthening jobs are two to five days on site once the substrate is ready: survey and preparation first, then bonding, then cure and encapsulation. Repair to the concrete before bonding is what stretches a programme, so we look for it early.

Which systems do you install?

Proprietary plate and fabric systems to the manufacturer's written procedure. We have installed Sika CarboDur plate with Sikadur 30 adhesive, and we will price whichever system your engineer has specified rather than talk you out of it.

What records do we get?

Substrate survey and pull off results where specified, adhesive batch numbers, ambient and substrate temperature and humidity at application, set out checks against the drawing, and progress photos. Enough for the engineer to certify and for the building file.

Other areas we cover

This page is about Newcastle. We also install carbon fibre strengthening in Sydney, Wollongong, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. For the full service overview see carbon fibre strengthening.

Post tensioned slab cutting by city

Where a penetration has to go through a post tensioned slab, we scan, open, truncate and reinstate the tendons to your structural engineer's design. City pages: Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

What happens next

Call 02 8015 6398 or send the form below with the drawings and the address. Our Sydney team will come back to you the same business day with any questions, then a method and a price.