This research investigates the feasibility and potential of utilizing BFRP floors in modular buildings as a low environmental impact and cost-effective alternative to conventional floors. A modular building is introduced as a case study, the Natural Pavilion in Almere, to bring focus to the research and set a baseline for the requirements of the BFRP floor. A second case study, the bio-composite bridge in Ritsumasyl, is introduced to utilize its comprehensive dataset of material properties representing the state-of-the-art BFRP. Using the two case studies, two design solutions, a one-way and two-way floor, are developed. Comparing the designed BFRP floor to conventional floors such as cross-laminated timber, concrete hollow core slab, and concrete flat slab, several conclusions can be drawn: (1) The construction height of BFRP floors is similar to that of conventional floors. The weight of the floor is similar to a CLT floor, while a concrete floor is 6-8 times heavier. Design optimization is possible, and the amount of BFRP material utilized can be reduced by up to 21% for the one-way floor and 19% for the two-way floor. Additionally, the floor design proposed in this thesis is intended for buildings with a design life of 15 years and no specific fire resistance requirements. For structures with a design life of 50 years, it is imperative to increase the floor height to meet deflection criteria. Further research on fire resistance and additional measures is necessary to extend applicability beyond single-compartment buildings and terrace housing. (2) The environmental impact of a BFRP floor, assessed in terms of Global Warming Potential through a Life Cycle Analysis encompassing stages A1-A5, is found to be twice that of a concrete floor. Through optimization of the floor design and reduction of BFRP material usage, it is possible to achieve a reduction in CO2 emissions of approximately 10%. Nevertheless, in the current state-of-the-art, BFRP floors exhibit a higher environmental impact than conventional flooring systems. The use of resin and the production process are the primary contributors to CO2 emissions. The contribution from the production process requires nuance, as results heavily depend on the data source. Factors such as manufacturing techniques and production scale significantly affect this impact. By reducing the impact of the resin and production techniques while also exploring end-of-life possibilities for 100% bio-based BFRP, the environmental impact of BFRP floors holds potential for the future. (3) The floor cost is nearly twice as high as a comparable CLT floor. This can be attributed to introducing new design solutions with a sustainability focus, often resulting in increased costs due to lower demand, higher material and design expenses, and limited production scale. Even though current costs are much higher for BFRP floors than for conventional floors, there is potential for BFRP floors to become more cost-effective and competitive in the future, especially when the environmental impact is reduced. It is difficult to estimate how the price of BFRP floors would change over time, and therefore, it has not been taken into account in the results.

With the rising demand for renewable energy, floating offshore wind turbines have gained importance, particularly in regions where deep waters prevent the use of traditional monopile structures. These floating turbines rely on mooring lines for stability against environmental conditions, particularly when facing strong winds and high waves. Ensuring a satisfactory lifetime and health of mooring lines is critical. Moreover, degradation can compromise the turbine’s functionality or even lead to catastrophic failures. While direct monitoring is ideal, it is often hampered by high costs and extensive maintenance. This Master’s thesis introduces a novel method to assess mooring line degradation. The proposed approach simulates the impact of environmental conditions on the mooring lines, considering various forces and weather scenarios. The research presents modeling of fatigue and corrosion effects along the mooring line. A unique corrosion model calculates variations based on seawater’s oxygen and temperature profiles. Concurrently, mooring line stresses are deduced from real-world environmental conditions. Integrating these, a finite element model is constructed to analyze different load scenarios and the onset of corrosion on line degradation. The model considers the joint impact of corrosion and fatigue on mooring lines, including the influence of hydro static pressure and out-of-plane bending. Validation of this methodology draws upon existing research and experimental results on mooring lines.

The use of Glass Fibre-Reinforced Polymer as a building material in structures or structural components is on the rise. Standards such as CUR96, DNV and JRC provide a basis of design with the material. However, there is a lack of confidence in the design phase with structures made of Glass Fibre-Reinforced Polymer, resulting in the use of large safety factors causing the components to be bloated in size. At the time of writing this report, the technical committee, CEN/TC 250 (responsible for developing structural Eurocodes), establishes a technical design specification for Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) structures. This technical specification describes a simplified and linear criterion to determine the capacity of a GFPR Laminate, in addition to being open for the use of Progressive Failure Analysis (PFA). However, the simplified and linear criterion is overly conservative, whereas there is a lack of faith in the use of the PFA considering the failure theories and degradation models that are currently in use. This report discusses the PFA, a non-linear, 5-step, advanced 2D analysis model, that can predict the static strength of in-plane stress dominated Glass Fibre-Reinforced Polymer laminate, with an arbitrary lay-up composition, based on existing knowledge and experiments, including the damage development under multi-axial stress states and stress redistribution. The research is limited to in-plane behavior, under tensile and compressive stresses. The static material response is characterized on a unidirectional ply level based on principal directions and based on experimental results obtained from the OptiDat program. The response predicted by the PFA for both tension and compression was in reasonable agreement with the experimental results. However, depending on the failure theory and degradation model used, there is potential for optimistic predictions of the laminate stress capacity. For future work, it is recommended to continue the research on a larger variety of laminate lay-ups and include more failure theories and degradation models.