Fibre-reinforced polymers (FRPs) are a promising corrosion-resistant alternative to steel reinforcement. FRPs are, however, generally costly and have a high energy demand during production. The question arises whether the high performance of FRPs and possible savings in concrete mass can counterbalance initial costs and environmental impact. In this paper, a parametric design study that considers a broad range of concrete infrastructure, namely a rail platform barrier, a retaining wall and a bridge, is conducted to assess the mass-related global warming potential and material costs. Design equations are parametrised to derive optimum reinforced concrete cross-sectional designs that fulfil the stated requirements for the serviceability limit state and ultimate limit state. Conventional steel reinforcement, glass and carbon FRP reinforcement options are evaluated. It is observed that the cross-sectional design has a significant influence on the environmental impact and cost, with local extrema for both categories determinable when the respective values become a minimum. When comparing the cradle-to-gate impact of the different materials, the fibre-reinforced polymer-reinforced structures are found to provide roughly equivalent or, in some cases, slightly more sustainable solutions than steel-reinforced structures in terms of the global warming potential, but the material costs are higher. In general, the size of the structure determines the cost competitiveness and sustainability of the FRP-reinforced concrete options with the rail platform barrier application showing the greatest potential.

The availability of fiber‐reinforced polymers (FRP) as an alternative for conventional steel reinforcement in concrete construction is increasing. To widen the scope of application, for example, in the case of prestressing, and to improve the bond behavior at the bar ends, end anchorages need to be considered. Within this paper, a new short‐length anchor representing a combination between a bond and mechanical anchor is presented using a special inner geometry to increase the load‐bearing capacity due to the mechanical wedge effect, with a bonding length of only 50 mm. Besides giving a short overview of different anchorage systems, the paper focuses on experimental investigations that were performed with mechanical bond anchors with a variation of the inner geometry of the steel anchorage, different FRP bars, and different load transfer media. A numerical investigation completes the study by showing an approach to calculate the presented mechanical bond anchors. It was found that a small thickness of the bonding material is favorable, and a decrease of the bonding length is not necessarily disadvantageous. A tensile failure of the FRP bars was not achieved, although a full exploitation seems promising since a utilization of up to 83% of a basalt FRP bar was reached.