Temperature Effects on Fatigue of Polymer Composites

Published

July 1, 2000

Author(s)

Hai C. Tang, Tinh Nguyen, Tze J. Chuang, Joannie W. Chin, Hanchang F. Wu, J Lesko

Abstract

Fiber-reinforced polymeric composites provide lightweight, high strength, and corrosive resistance to severe environmental exposures. These composites have been extensively used in aerospace and military application over the last three decades and are being extended into civil engineering applications. However, there is little quantitative research on the effects of civil engineering environments, namely, water, sea water, temperature, concrete pore solution, ultraviolet light, and loading on the fatigue of polymeric composites.We have developed a fatigue model, for predicting the fatigue life of fiber-reinforced polymeric composites, that incorporates applied maximum stress, stress amplitude, loading frequency, residual tensile modulus, and material constants. The model has been verified with experimental fatigue data of a glass fiber/vinyl ester composite in various environments: air, fresh water, and saltwater at 30 C. This study continues to investigate the effects on fatigue life by the change of temperature.Both the residual mechanical properties at specified loading cycles and the number of cycles at which the specimens fail are measured. The results show, for the material used in this study, that the fatigue life in these aqueous environments at 65 oC is about the same as that at 30 oC, but the fatigue life at 4 oC is significantly longer than that at 30 oC.Based on these experimental data, the material constants, m and C, are derived as functions of temperature, T.

Citation

Composites Engineering

Volume

7

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

aqueous environments, fatigue life, polymer composites, temperature, vinyl ester/e-glass composite

Citation

Tang, H. , Nguyen, T. , Chuang, T. , Chin, J. , Wu, H. and Lesko, J. (2000), Temperature Effects on Fatigue of Polymer Composites, Composites Engineering (Accessed April 19, 2024)