BREAKTHROUGH TO SPAN THE AGES

A WORLD-LEADING building product developed by a Geelong consortium will be used to construct two pedestrian bridges designed to go without maintenance for 100 years,

The two 10m pedestrian bridges in North Geelong’s “Seagull Paddock” will serve as a demonstration model to showcase the product — carbon fibre-reinforced geopolymer — which has worldwide implications in solving concrete cancer.

Consortium leaders believe future opportunities for the product, for which a provisional patent has been filed, are “immense” and there are plans to launch a start-up business in Geelong on the back of the initial contract.

The City of Greater Geelong is hailing the project as the first in Australia to be successfully awarded through a Procurement for Innovation process with the tender seeking solutions to the problem of maintaining bridges, which cost the city about $500,000 to inspect, repair, maintain and replace each year.

The winning consortium comprising North Geelong engineering firm Austeng, Deakin University’s Carbon Nexus and Australian engineering company Rocla beat seven other tenderers from across Australia.

Austeng managing director Ross George said concrete cancer was a worldwide problem and the consortium had plans to develop the innovative carbon fibre-reinforced geo- polymer on the back of the world-leading research at Carbon Nexus.

“We want to make Geelong the carbon fibre-reinforced geopolymer capital of the world,” Mr George said.

“Future opportunities are immense. There are not only thousands of bridges owned by local councils around Australia that need to be maintained, there is no reason this product cannot ultimately be used for structural purposes such as an multistorey buildings.”

Professor Russell Varley, from Carbon Nexus, said the combination of geopolymer and carbon fibre, and the application that bound them together, was a first.

“This research will help us to lay the foundation to create longer lasting and maintenance free structures,” he said.