Rehabilitation of the Wyeth Building with TYFO^® Fibrwrap^® Composite Systems

This commercial building in Makati City, in Metro Manila, used by the corporate staff of Wyeth Philippines was in need of structural strengthening. During rainfalls, leaks were observed on the roof slab and steel corrosion, and spalling of reinforced concrete had occurred in various places in the building. The owners of the building contracted the services of a structural consultant and requested a full investigation. After a complete physical survey, the building was evaluated for its structural integrity.

As per the evaluation and test results of the survey, the consultants advised the owners to retrofit and upgrade the structure to meet current National Structural Code of the Philippines. Beams were in need of shear and flexural strengthening and columns in need of additional axial capacity. The consultants put forth two retrofitting schemes for the building for management to choose from. The first was a steel plate bonding retrofit method and the second was a fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) method.

Due to its ease of installation, long-term track record, cost effectiveness and minimal disturbance to day-to-day operations of the office, FYFE Asia’s FRP Composite System was chosen by the management as the preferred strengthening method over other FRP systems, as well as over the steel plate bonding method. As part of the requirement, the building had to be retrofitted on weekends and after office hours. The work was carried out successfully by Fyfe Asia’s Philippines applicator, EC Structural Composites Inc.