SBIR-STTR Award

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will focus on the development of a superior infrastructure material with wide-reaching applications. Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) rebar materials offer significant performance advantages as compared to uncoated steel rebar. These advantages include a sevenfold weight reduction, the elimination of corrosion, a 30% reduction in concrete usage (which translates to a 15 billion ton reduction in CO2 emissions), and equivalent tensile strength at smaller diameters versus traditional steel rebar. FRP rebar is being produced in small quantities, but has limited market acceptance due to its high cost. The material and process to be developed will allow price parity and enable dramatic improvements in production speeds as compared to the current FRP state-of-the-art. When combined, these improvements will open the FRP market of $1.8 billion and create opportunities in the broader $60 billion global market for rebar. Additionally, global basalt mine waste dumps will be explored and, if possible, utilized as a raw material for fiber production. If successful, this would eliminate a significant waste stream and lead to better environmental stewardship. This effort will focus on developing the process required to produce this new rebar. A thermoset resin and basalt fiber will be used as the primary reinforcements within this composite. Over the past 20 years, FRP rebar has been developed into a viable product, representing $1.2 billion in cumulative revenue. However, no FRP rebar product is currently offered at price parity with uncoated steel rebar. In order to reach price parity, this effort will focus on development of a novel high-speed manufacturing process for this material. Basalt fiber is an emerging material that has potential to replace carbon fiber in a variety of applications. Additionally, thermoset resins not commonly used in pultrusion can offer improved performance characteristics that cannot be achieved with typical FRP rebar resins. Completion of this project will create further understanding of material interactions in this system, which will create the potential for additional composite technologies.

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will focus on developing the process required to produce fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) rebar at scale. FRP rebar offers significant performance advantages when compared to uncoated steel rebar. These advantages include a sevenfold weight reduction, no corrosion - which in turn permits a 30% reduction in concrete usage (and a corresponding 15 billion ton reduction in CO2 emissions) - and equivalent tensile strength at smaller diameters compared to steel rebar products. FRP rebar is being produced but has limited market acceptance due to its high cost. The high-speed process to be developed in this project will allow price parity when compared to uncoated steel and enable a hundredfold improvement in process speeds compared to current FRP manufacturing. Combined, these improvements will allow entry to the $140 billion global market for steel rebar and allow mass market adoption of FRP rebar. Additionally, basalt mine waste will be explored and, where possible, utilized as a raw material for fiber production. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project includes job creation and environmental impacts. With implementation of this process up to 35 manufacturing jobs can be created immediately. The company's high speed process combines a thermoset resin and basalt fiber as primary reinforcements within the FRP composite. A consortium of pultruders has collectively organized the Fiber Reinforced Polymer Rebar Manufacturers Council and has developed FRP rebar into a viable product over the last 20 years, with a $1.2 billion market at present. Currently, no FRP rebar product is offered at price parity with uncoated steel rebar, and to reach this price parity a high speed process has been invented. This novel process will be optimized and further developed by the completion of this Phase II SBIR project. Basalt fiber, an emerging material with the potential to replace carbon and other fibers in a variety of applications will be brought into large-scale industrial usage with the completion of this project. The Phase I project permitted the determination of the performance characteristics of thermoset resins which have not been commonly used in pultrusion, enabling product validation. This Phase II project will address a range of manufacturing challenges that will be encountered in the production of FRP rebar at industrial scale, allowing a commercially viable final product that can be offered at price parity with steel rebar.