Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) decks have been used on bridges for the past 10 years. Since then, approximately 50 bridges with FRP decks have been constructed all around the United States . They are used in bridge rehabilitation projects, often because of their durability, as well as their relatively low self weight, which could result in increased load ratings. FRP bridge decks can be constructed rapidly and they also have advantages in terms of life cycle costs due to their corrosion resistance.

Currently there is not much experience with the use and the behavior of FRP decks after many cycles of service loads and environment changes; inspection methods must be developed in order to make the construction of FRP decks more viable. Regular bridge inspections are in general visual but this method is inadequate for inspecting and quantifying the behavior of FRP. The objective of this research is to create a reliable inspection method for FRP decks in service by characterizing the energy and wave amplitudes release of their most common failure mechanisms. This on-going research is based on the hypothesis that every limit state has a unique release of energy or unique wave amplitude, and that characterization of these will aid in the precise location and type of failure. Full scale experiments demonstrated the distinct energy release at different stages of the test. Additional coupon tests, as well as small component tests, will aid in the specific categorization of the failure modes.