Development of a Novel Lightweight Utility Pole Using a New Hybrid Reinforced Composite—Part 1: Fabrication and Experimental Investigation

Abstract

This paper is the first part of a two-part paper that discusses the development of a novel lightweight and cost-effective hybrid 3D composite material and its and utilization for constructing utility poles. The main objective was to generate a material/pole with a comparable performance to the commercially available poles made of 2D fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) and examine its feasibility. The novel hybrid composite was configured using a recently developed and marketed 3D E-glass fabric–epoxy composite reinforced with wood dowels, referred to as 3D dowel-reinforced FRPs (3D-drFRPs) hereafter. Firstly, the compressive and flexural properties of the 3D-drFRPs are evaluated. Then, the development of the 3D pole is discussed followed by the fabrication details of two 3D-drFRPs using the standard test method, and their responses are compared. For the second part, robust finite element (FE) models were developed in an LS-DYNA environment and calibrated based on the experimental results. A sophisticated nonlinear FE model was used to simulate the performances of ASTM standard-size compression and three-point bending specimens and tapered 2D and prismatic 3D poles. Moreover, the responses of equivalent 2D and 3D poles were simulated numerically, as the task could not be accommodated experimentally due to our laboratory’s deficiencies. The integrity of the numerical simulation results was validated against experimental results, confirming the accuracy of the developed model. As an example, the stiffness values for the 3-pt bending specimens and the 3D poles obtained through the simulations were very close to the experimentally obtained results, with small margins of errors of 3.2% and 0.89%, respectively. Finally, a simplified analytical calculation method was developed so practicing engineers can determine the stiffnesses of 3D-DrFRP poles very accurately and quickly.