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Steel and Composite Structures Volume 25, Number 1, September20 2017 , pages 93-104 DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/scs.2017.25.1.093 |
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Effect of hygrothermal aging on GFRP composites in marine environment |
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Mohit Garg, Shruti Sharma, Sandeep Sharma and Rajeev Mehta
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| Abstract | ||
| In the present work, the effect of hygrothermal aging on the glass fibre and epoxy matrix interface has been investigated by destructive and non-destructive techniques. The glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite laminates were prepared using Vacuum Assisted Resin Infusion Molding (VARIM) technique and the specimens were immersed in simulated seawater, followed by quantitative measurement. Besides this, the tensile tests of GFRP specimens revealed a general decrease in the properties with increasing aging time. Also, exposed specimens were characterized by a non-destructive ultrasonic guided Lamb wave propagation technique. The experimental results demonstrate a correlation between the drop in ultrasonic voltage amplitude and fall in tensile strength with increasing time of immersion. Hence, the comparison of the transmitted guided wave signal of healthy vis-a-vis specimens subjected to different extents of hygrothermal aging facilitated performance evaluation of GFRP composites. | ||
| Key Words | ||
| GFRP; polymer composites; environmental degradation; marine environment; mechanical properties; damage mechanism; non-destructive testing | ||
| Address | ||
| (1) Mohit Garg: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; (2) Shruti Sharma: Department of Civil Engineering, Thapar University, Patiala, India; (3) Sandeep Sharma: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thapar University, Patiala, India; (4) Rajeev Mehta: Department of Chemical Engineering, Thapar University, Patiala, India. | ||