RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

FRP Research & Development

R&D at QuakeWrap® is a continuous loop led by Prof. Mo Ehsani. Field problems become lab tests, universities and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers test the results independently, and the best ideas become patented products. Competitive SBIR grants from NSF, USDA, EPA and the U.S. DOT help fund the work.

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Grout beam cast on a SPiRe®+ panel in the test frame, with the panel's T profiles visible at the end

$1M U.S. DOT SBIR Phase II award, 2022

first FRP beam research: 1987
federal agencies funding QuakeWrap® SBIR research: 4
U.S. DOT SBIR Phase II, 2022: $1M
issued U.S. patents listed: 11

HOW WE WORK

Research Meets Practice

At QuakeWrap®, R&D is a continuous process, not a one-time effort. It is led by Prof. Mo Ehsani, whose research on FRP repair began in the late 1980s, when he and his University of Arizona colleagues introduced the wet layup method.

Our in-house R&D lab fabricates, prepares and tests samples of QuakeWrap® products, including pipe samples on testing devices built for each project. Much of the recent work is on pipe construction and repair.

Ideas come from problems on real projects. They are tested in our lab and by independent partners, then refined with feedback from contractors and clients.

Field-driven innovation based on real project challenges
In-house research and testing
Continuous product refinement based on contractor and client feedback

Three views of an InfinitPipe specimen being dug out of the soil after testing at Louisiana Tech

COMPETITIVE FUNDING

Research Grants and SBIR Awards

Federal funding for Prof. Ehsani's university research and for QuakeWrap® products. SBIR awards are peer reviewed. Amounts and dates come from the award records and press releases listed in the sources.

Research grants and SBIR awards by year, agency, research topic, amount and record
Year	Agency and program	Research	Amount	Record
1991	National Science Foundation	University of Arizona: strengthening concrete columns with fiber composites	$199,769	NSF award 9022667
1992	National Science Foundation	University of Arizona: seismic strengthening of unreinforced masonry with fiber composite fabrics	$35,000	NSF award 9201110
1995	National Science Foundation	University of Arizona: retrofitting unreinforced masonry walls for out-of-plane bending	$75,133	NSF award 9421950
2013	NSF SBIR Phase I	QuakeWrap®: honeycomb FRP composite sandwich pipe (InfinitPipe®)	$150,000	NSF award 1315561
2017	USDA NIFA SBIR Phase I	QuakeWrap®: InfinitPipe® for agriculture	$100,000	InfinitPipe®
2019	USDA NIFA SBIR Phase II	QuakeWrap®: InfinitPipe® for agriculture	$625,000	InfinitPipe®
2019	U.S. EPA SBIR Phase I	QuakeWrap®: SuperLaminate™ pipe repair	$100,000	Awards & Recognition
2020	U.S. DOT SBIR Phase I	QuakeWrap®: internal repair of steel transmission pipelines with SuperLaminate™	$150,000	Press release (PDF)
2022	U.S. DOT SBIR Phase II	QuakeWrap®: no-dig point repair technology for steel oil and gas pipelines	$1,000,000	Press release (PDF)

Facing a problem no product solves yet?

Many QuakeWrap® products started as a problem on a real project. Tell us about yours.

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TESTING PARTNERS

Independent Testing With Universities and Agencies

Our collaborators have included the University of Houston, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Louisiana Tech University and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Results apply to the specimens tested.

Independent tests of QuakeWrap products by partner, sponsor, scope, finding and report
Partner	Sponsor	What was tested	What it found	Report
U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, Mississippi	PIER Joint Capability Technology Demonstration	Commercial pile jackets for rapid repair of concrete and timber port piles, including full-scale tests	Selected PileMedic® for its adaptability to piles of different shapes and sizes. It met the criteria for capacity restoration, speed and ease of installation, time to capacity, fresh and seawater use and shelf life (August 2018 report)	PIER fact sheet (PDF)
University of Houston and Texas Tech University	Texas DOT and FHWA, report 0-6731-1	14 corroded steel H-piles repaired with FRP jacket systems patented by Prof. Ehsani	Axial capacity restored in 13 of 14 piles. The exception was built without the anchors its design called for	Final report (PDF)
Missouri University of Science and Technology, with the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of Houston	Caltrans and the National University Transportation Center at Missouri S&T	Emergency repair of an earthquake-damaged concrete bridge column with fractured bars, using prefabricated thin CFRP laminates and CFRP strips	The repair restored the column's seismic performance in lateral strength and deformation capacity (Composite Structures, 2015)	Paper (PDF)
Trenchless Technology Center, Louisiana Tech University	NSF SBIR research grant to QuakeWrap®	InfinitPipe® under ASTM D2412, D2444, D1598, D638, D790 and D2240 tests (July 2014)	Performed well under mechanical and impact loads and simulated 25 ft of overburden. Recommended an impervious inner layer and long-term tests	TTC report (PDF)
University of Miami Structures and Materials Laboratory	QuakeWrap®	Carbon fabrics U20C, U41C and B20C with QuakeBond™ 300SR, tested per ICC-ES AC125 (October 2018)	Tension, bond, durability aging, freeze-thaw and ASTM E84 results for code evaluation. QuakeWrap's current evaluation is IAPMO UES ER-828	AC125 test report (PDF)