Chapter 7 - Durability and life prediction of fiber-reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

Synthetic fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are widely used in construction, mechanical engineering, aerospace and automobiles, and other applications where high ratios of mechanical properties relative to mass are required. During the manufacturing, storage, and service, various environmental conditions may affect the long-term performance of FRP composites. A degradation of performance of FRP composites is caused by chemical, physical, and mechanical properties such as temperature, moisture, alkalinity and acidity, ultraviolet radiation, as well as their combinations with mechanical loading in time. In this chapter, the durability of synthetic FRP composites under those above-mentioned environmental conditions is reviewed. The life-prediction approaches for FRP composites are reviewed focusing on the most used concepts such as time-temperature superposition principle (TTSP), and its wide applications through Arrhenius Plots in combination with accelerated aging test data. Accelerated aging test methods aim to assess the “long-term” durability of FRP composites within a short period of time. This is motivated by two aspects: (i) the investigation on realistic long-term performance of FRPs under in-service environmental conditions takes unaffordable time and (ii) the results are nearly impossible to be extended in many cases having different weathering conditions, loading conditions and material characteristics. At the end, the challenges for life predictions of FRP composites are highlighted.