Mapei FRP Technology for In's Discount Store

IN's Mercato SpA is a discount store belonging to Gruppo PAM, which has more than 450 stores across northern and central Italy. The first iN's discount store opened its doors to the public in 1994 and was an immediate success, quickly developing its own structure. Today, it is the fifth largest chain largest amongst the Italian groups operating in this sector.

Inaugurated in March 2018, the store in Cologno Monzese (in the outskirts of Milan) underwent structural strengthening work in 2019 to bring the structure in line with the high safety standards required by the Group.

The work was carried out with the FRP technology (Fibre Reinforced Polymers) by positioning MAPEWRAP C UNI-AX SYSTEM, made of  high-strength, high modulus of elasticity, unidirectional carbon fibre fabrics – in this case of 600 g/m² - impregnated and bonded with epoxy resin along the beams, pillars and predalles slab roof of the structure.

All this work brought the load-bearing capacity of the roof, where the heavy pallets containing all the goods on sale are deposited, to more than 800 kg/m².

The intervention also ensured that the rooms used for the discount store’s administration offices below the roof are particularly safe.

ALL THE ADVANTAGES OF MAPEWRAP C UNI-AX SYSTEM

In this specific case, the structural strengthening package chosen by the design studio was MAPEWRAP C UNI-AX SYSTEM.

Compared with the cladding technique using metal plates (beton plaquè), which would previously have been one of the options for this type of work, the MAPEWRAP C UNI-AX SYSTEM may be modelled to suit any shape of element or structure requiring repair, it does not require temporary supports during application and there is no risk of corrosion to the strengthening system.

Economic factors were also decisive when opting for the Mapei system: unlike work carried out using conventional techniques, thanks to the extremely low weight of the fabrics used in the strengthening package, MAPEWRAP C UNI-AX SYSTEM may be installed by a smaller team of workers.

Application time is very short and, as in the case of this iN's store, there was no need to interrupt activities normally carried out inside the structure. Once all the surfaces had been impregnated with MAPEWRAP PRIMER 1, work proceeded by applying a layer around 1 mm thick of MAPEWRAP 11 epoxy grout for levelling the support with a notched trowel while the primer was still wet.

Then, while the MAPEWRAP 11 layer was still wet, the first layer around 0.5 mm thick of MAPEWRAP 31 epoxy adhesive for impregnation and bonding was applied, followed by immediately applying MAPEWRAP C UNI-AX 600/40 uni-directional continuous carbon fibre fabric.