About MC-Bauchemie MC-CarbonFiber GF Sheets

MC-CarbonFiber GF Sheets is MC-Bauchemie’s unidirectional, standard-modulus E-glass fabric for externally bonded FRP strengthening — the glass-fibre counterpart to the company’s better-known carbon sheets, and the direct successor to the older MC-Dur GF Sheets product it was renamed from. The fabric is a 950 gsm, 500mm-wide roll of unidirectional glass fibres that gets wet-laminated onto a prepared concrete, masonry, timber or pre-stressed concrete surface using MC-Bauchemie’s own two-part epoxy system: MC-Carbosolid 1209 as primer and saturant, and MC-Carbosolid 1209 TX as the thixotropic adhesive that holds the fabric in place on vertical and soffit surfaces. Once cured, the glass fibres and epoxy matrix act as a thin external laminate bonded to the structural member, picking up tensile and shear stresses the way additional reinforcement steel would, without the cost, weight or disruption of jacketing or section enlargement.

For Space Arc’s Delhi NCR and Pan-India structural-repair projects, GF Sheets earn their place as the value-engineering option in an FRP strengthening scheme. Wherever the design doesn’t need carbon’s very high stiffness — crack-width restriction, confinement wrapping of columns and piers, masonry retrofit, or strengthening of secondary members — glass fabric gets the job done at a noticeably lower cost per square metre, and without the galvanic-corrosion risk carbon fibre carries when it sits close to embedded rebar. It isn’t a shelf product; MC-Bauchemie expects the strengthening scheme to be sized by a structural engineer against the existing structure’s audited condition, and installation is meant to be carried out by applicators MC-Bauchemie has specifically certified for GF Sheets work, which is how we scope and sell it to consultants and contractors.

The technical insight

The number that separates this product from its carbon siblings is E-modulus. MC-CarbonFiber GF Sheets sit at ≥72 kN/mm², well below the 200+ kN/mm² typical of MC’s carbon fabrics, so for the same fabric cross-section a glass laminate stretches more and stiffens the member less per layer. That’s a genuine limitation for flexural strengthening where stiffness is the design driver, but it’s precisely why glass suits crack-control, confinement and wrap applications: a high elongation at break (≥4.8%) and tensile strength of ≥2600 N/mm² give the laminate ductile, forgiving behaviour rather than the stiff, brittle failure mode carbon can show if over-strained. Glass fibre is also electrically non-conductive, so it doesn’t set up the galvanic corrosion cell that carbon fibre can create when it sits in direct contact with steel reinforcement in a damp environment — a real consideration on older, chloride-exposed Indian structures. The 950gsm/500mm wet lay-up format, as opposed to a pre-cured laminate plate, means the resin system does double duty as primer, saturant and protective coat, which is why MC ties the fabric to its own MC-Carbosolid 1209 and 1209 TX resins rather than leaving adhesive selection open.

Where it is used

• Flexural strengthening of RCC and PSC beams and slabs carrying increased load or a change of use
• Shear strengthening of beams using U-wrap or full-wrap fabric configurations
• Confinement jacketing of RCC and masonry columns and piers to lift axial capacity and ductility
• Seismic retrofit of masonry walls and unreinforced masonry piers
• Crack-width restriction and control on distressed or overloaded structural members
• Strengthening of timber beams and other secondary structural elements
• Wrapping of curved or circular members such as silos, chimneys, water tanks and culverts
• Economical outer wrap in hybrid schemes where a carbon laminate needs isolating from embedded steel

Key advantages

• Meaningfully cheaper than carbon fabric for jobs where the design target doesn’t need carbon’s stiffness
• Electrically non-conductive, so no galvanic corrosion risk against embedded rebar the way carbon fibre carries
• High tensile strength in a thin, lightweight laminate that adds negligible dead load and no dimensional change
• Flexible fabric that drapes and wraps cleanly around columns, curved soffits and other irregular geometry
• Fast, low-disruption installation compared with jacketing, section enlargement or steel plate bonding
• Unlimited design durability when stored correctly and properly UV-protected after installation
• Fabric, primer and saturant are engineered as one MC system rather than mixed-and-matched components
• Special widths and roll lengths available on request for project-specific detailing

Limitations & considerations

• Lower E-modulus than carbon fibre means more layers or fabric area needed for an equivalent stiffness gain, so it isn’t the right call where flexural stiffness is the governing design requirement
• Performance depends entirely on correct wet lay-up execution; poor impregnation or rolling gives a laminate that looks fine but delivers a fraction of its rated strength
• Needs a UV-protective topcoat on any surface exposed to sunlight or weathering — the bare laminate isn’t rated for long-term UV exposure
• Substrate prep is unforgiving: residual moisture must be 6% or below and surface roughness under 1mm, which adds cost and time on damp or rough concrete
• Not a substitute for underlying repair — corroded rebar or deteriorated concrete has to be fixed with a proper repair mortar before the fabric goes on
• The datasheet doesn’t publish design strain or allowable-stress values, so the actual strengthening scheme has to be engineered project by project rather than picked off a spec sheet

Selection & best practice

Specifications

Industry use cases

How we position MC-Bauchemie MC-CarbonFiber GF Sheets

Within MC-Bauchemie’s own structural-strengthening range, GF Sheets is the glass-fibre partner to MC-CarbonFiber CF Sheets (the higher-stiffness carbon fabric for flexural-critical strengthening) and MC-CarbonFiber Lamella (pultruded CFRP strips used on beam soffits). All three run on the same MC-Carbosolid 1209 / 1209 TX resin system, and any patch repair or levelling ahead of application should use MC-Dur putty or the Nafufill repair-mortar range rather than a generic filler. Where a specifier’s brief calls for a Fosroc-branded system instead — often because Fosroc is already the approved brand for other structural repair work on that project — the genuine equivalent is Fosroc Nitowrap EP(GF), an epoxy-bonded glass-fibre wrapping system built for the same confinement and crack-control applications. The choice between the two usually comes down to which brand’s resin system and applicator network is already approved on that particular project rather than any meaningful performance gap.

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