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Excerpt from Aqua Magazine featuring our Expert Specifying / Corrosion Engineer Peter Gibson
FIBERGLASS SWIMMING POOL – GLASS FIBER REINFORCEMENT AND RESINS
By Peter Gibson
Let’s start with a basic definition of the material: Fiberglass is a composition of glass fibers in a thermosetting resin matrix. It is hardened/cured by an organic peroxide catalyst into a homogeneous mass of various shapes and sizes.
The material is best known in the pool industry in the form of the factory-made pool shell, first fabricated in the 1950’s. While the material is the best choice for pool surfaces, prefab manufacturers have been limited by the size and shape of the vessels they can produce and deliver, which has hampered its growth in the pool market. For customers who want a concrete pool with a fiberglass finish, a concrete forming system is available, and the fiberglass finish is applied to the structure interior.
That’s an old story that has been handed down through generations of pool professionals, and that thinking needs to change. As far as pool refinishing is concerned, there is this almost institutional resistance to fiberglass that has prevented the industry from adopting what should be its go-to surface material.
Part of that sweeping disconnect is partly due to the fact that by contrast, the application of fiber-reinforced polymer lining systems, the modern heir apparent to traditional fiberglass, is relatively new to the pool industry. In all fairness, however, the composites industry is also little known to the broader engineering fraternity. That’s why the composites industry is reaching out to materials engineers and specifiers to educate them on the benefits of using composite materials, i.e., corrosion resistance, long service life and low life-cycle cost.
Fiberglass usage for fieldwork falls under the jurisdiction of coatings technical societies, not pool industry standards. These coatings societies create consensus standards for coating applications.
What professionals in these organizations know, and what hopefully someday will become accepted in the pool and spa industry, is that cement-based materials do not offer any structural or corrosion resistance benefits and should not be considered for cracked/or leaking pools.
Historically, however, before fiberglass reinforced polymer linings were an option, and in addition to re-plastering, many owners with cracked pools installed vinyl liners. Yet installation problems were common with this method, including inaccurate cutting and sizing of the liner and the need to alter the pool structure for liner attachment purposes. Prefabricated fiberglass pools were also used for cracked pools, but this has proven impractical and expensive, as well.
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Peter Gibson
Our Expert Specifying / Corrosion Engineer
Technical Affiliations:
SPI – Composites Institute
ACMA – American Composites Manufacturers Association
SSPC – Society for Protective Coatings
NACE – The Corrosion Society
Check out the Memphis Tennessee Certified Pool Resurfacing brochure fact sheet.
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