Novel composites jacket for structural repair won research commercialisation award

Ali presented in his poster the outcome of his PhD work on Novel Composites Jacket for Structural Repair. Almost every state and territory of Australia and multiple Universities from New Zealand were all represented in the poster competition.

The awarded work is a result of a three-year collaborative development project between Joinlox and USQ, which has developed and commercialised a new type of composite pile repair system made of a prefabricated fibre-reinforced polymer jacket. The end product is composite repair with an innovative joining system for infrastructure rehabilitation. The traditional composite repair systems, which are directly wrapped to the damaged structure, requires a lot of site preparation. This award winning composite technology is quick to install due to its novel easy-fit and self-locking mechanical joining system. The design of the innovative joint mimics the way clam shells close its hundreds of small filaments together – with precise ease and strength.

Professor Peter Schubel, the Director of the Centre for Future Materials (CFM) at USQ highly commended Ali and his PhD supervisor Professor Allan Manalo for receiving such prestigious award. He added that “This award is a recognition of the innovativeness and practicality of the composite technologies being researched at USQ especially in the area of Advanced Materials & Manufacturing. The Innovyz Research Commercialisation Poster Award recognises the innovativeness of the research activities that our PhD students do at USQ and our strong linkage with industries which help brings our developed technologies from research laboratory to commercial application. The prefabricated composite jacket with an innovative joint is a very good example of this.”

The awarded prefabricated composite jacket technology has a significant and wide market potential. Following the successful 3-year collaborative development programme with USQ, Joinlox have now commercialized this technology under the trade name “PileJax” and has been utilized in several bridge rehabilitation projects, including rail bridges across the Gold Coast canal system. In Australia alone, the majority of the 12,000 concrete bridges managed by road authorities, especially those built in aggressive environments, start to deteriorate only after 30 years of service. Applying this technology will extend service life of to these critical infrastructures by decades at a fraction of the cost.

Innovyz specialises in the commercialisation of research from universities and institutions in Australia and New Zealand that can be applied to the future of advanced materials and manufacturing. The Innovyz  Research for Commercialisation Poster Competition promotes technologies with commercial application in the Advanced Materials & Manufacturing space. In addition to a cash prize, awardees of the poster competition award will have an opportunity for pitch training and to meet with the Innovyz Commercialisation Managers to explore their technology.