Name: Associate Professor, Dr. Nawawi Chouw
Affiliation: The University of Auckland, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Title: Static and dynamic properties of natural fibre reinforced composite structures Abstract: Abstract. This paper addresses the static and dynamic properties of new construction materials made of natural fibre reinforced polymers and concrete composites. The test specimens are of two configurations. These are single or double polymer tube confined coconut-fibre reinforced concrete. In both cases the tubes are of flax-fibre reinforced polymers. To evaluate static performance of the specimens, compressive tests and four-point bending tests were performed. To reveal the dynamic properties of the specimens, such as fundamental frequency and damping ratio, impact hammer tests were conducted. The results show that although the double tube confined concrete specimen is of a lower density, the compression strength is similar to that of the single tube confined concrete specimen. The flexural stiffness and ultimate load bearing capacity of the double tube confined concrete specimen, is enhanced by provision of additional longitudinal reinforcement provided by the inner flax-fibre reinforced polymer tube. Despite less concrete used in double tube confined concrete, these specimens demonstrate superior dynamic performance than single tube confined concrete specimens. Brief Bio:
Dr. Nawawi Chouw is an Associate Professor and Director of the University of Auckland Centre for Earthquake Engineering Research in New Zealand. Prior to joining the University of Auckland he worked at universities in Germany, Japan and Australia. He gained his diploma in Civil Engineering from the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. After working in a group of consulting engineers in Germany he returned to the Research Centre on Structural Dynamics at the Ruhr University Bochum, and he was awarded his doctorate. He has been awarded twice the Gledden Fellowship of the University of Western Australia, Fritz-Peter-Mueller Prize of the Technical University of Karlsruhe, Germany, the Best Research Award of Chugoku Denryoku Research Foundation, Japan, and received twice recognition for excellence in research supervision from Chinese Scholarship Council. He was invited to teach at several universities in Europe, China and Japan and to assess applications submitted to institutions in a number of countries. He is an associate editor of Frontiers in Build Environment – Earthquake Engineering and is an editorial board member of a number of international journals.