Abstract
Thermal aging of polymer matrix composites exert significant influence on their properties and applications. This paper studied the color changes and mechanical properties of glass fiber reinforced polycarbonate (GF-PC) composites after aging at different temperatures, and the correlation between the trend of color changes and mechanical properties after aging was discussed. The GF-PC composites were aged at 85 °C, 100 °C, 115 °C, 130 °C and 145 °C, respectively. Thereafter, CIELAB colors were used to characterize the color changes of the composites after aging. Tensile and three-point bending tests were carried out to determine the mechanical properties of the composites. According to the values of CIELAB color, the color changes and the color difference (ΔE) of the GF-PC composites after aging were calculated, which showed that color of the GF-PC composite aged at 100 °C changed the most. The color changes of the composites after aging mainly comes from the change of brightness (L value), which was 25.067 for the Raw GF-PC composite. When the aging temperature increased from 85 °C to 100 °C, the brightness of the composites also increased, but decreased when the aging temperature is above 100 °C and continues to rise. Coincidentally, the trend of the mechanical properties of GF-PC composites is closely associated with color changes in the aging temperature range of 85 °C to 145 °C. The tensile and flexural strength of the composites reached the maximum value 72 MPa and 131 MPa, respectively, after aged at 100 °C. It can be speculated that the brightness of the GF-PC composites correlates with trends observed in its tensile strength and bending strength.
Highlights
Polymer matrix composites are widely used in mechatronics, manufacturing and chemical industries
This paper studied the color changes and mechanical properties of glass fiber reinforced polycarbonate (GF-PC) composites after aging at different temperatures
The color difference(ΔE) is mainly reflected in brightness of the composites, which increased for 85 °C and 100 °C, but decreased after aging at high temperature
Summary
Polymer matrix composites are widely used in mechatronics, manufacturing and chemical industries. The manufacturing, storage, and service conditions of glass fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites make them vulnerable to exposure to various environmental conditions, such as humidity, high temperature, oxygen, ultraviolet radiation and chemical media [7,8]. These factors will act on the polymer matrix through different interactive damage mechanisms, causing the destruction of the chemical structure, and resulting in a progressive deterioration of the physical, chemical and mechanical properties [7,8,9,10,11]. The results showed that the stiffness of composites increased after aging, but the strength decreased slightly
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