Abstract

Roof trusses have always been constructed using traditional materials such as timber and steel which have been used in industrial, agricultural and residential structures. This study aims at obtaining further effectiveness which can be attained when Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) is used as the structural section materials of a roof truss. A CFRP truss section is compared with the same 350W (AISC 2005) steel truss section subjected to same loading conditions Results indicate that the steel truss withstand deflections more than the CFRP truss in both linear and non linear analysis. The CFRP truss was 77% lighter that the steel truss. It was also concluded that the shape of sections used in steel can be adopted for CFRP structures.

Keywords: CFRP; Roof trusses; FEM and reliability; Structural section; Optimization