Abstract
To investigate the mechanical degradation of the shear properties of glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) laminates in bridge decks under hygrothermal aging effects, short-beam shear tests were performed following the ASTM test standard (ASTM D790-10A). Based on the coupled hygro-mechanical finite element (FE) analysis method, an inverse parameter identification approach based on short-beam shear tests was developed and then employed to determine the environment-dependent interlaminar shear modulus of GFRP laminates. Subsequently, the shear strength and modulus of dry (0% Mt/M∞), moisture unsaturated (30% Mt/M∞ and 50% Mt/M∞), and moisture saturated (100% Mt/M∞) specimens at test temperatures of both 20 °C and 40 °C were compared. One cycle of the moisture absorption–desorption process was also investigated to address how the moisture-induced residual damage degrades the shear properties of GFRP laminates. The results revealed that the shear strength and modulus of moisture-saturated GFRP laminates decreased significantly, and the elevated testing temperature (40 °C) aggravated moisture-induced mechanical degradation. Moreover, an unrecoverable loss of shear properties for the GFRP laminates enduring one cycle of the moisture absorption–desorption process was evident.
Highlights
Various types of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are being used in different fields of application, ranging from sporting goods to structural materials for the automotive, maritime, and aerospace industries
During the past two decades, in the civil engineering field, FRP bridge decks are increasingly being used for the rehabilitation of old concrete–steel composite bridges and the new construction of pedestrian and highway bridges [1,2,3,4,5,6], due to their various advantages, including [7,8]: a high strength-to-weight ratio, good corrosion resistance, controllable quality, low maintenance cost, and rapid installation with minimum traffic disruption
glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) short-beam short-beam specimens immersed in water of 40 °C
Summary
Various types of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are being used in different fields of application, ranging from sporting goods to structural materials for the automotive, maritime, and aerospace industries. FRP decks are increasingly being used in civil infrastructure applications, their durability and long-term performance are still not comprehensively understood. In such applications, FRP composites are usually exposed to harsh and Polymers 2018, 10, 845; doi:10.3390/polym10080845 www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers. The “hot/wet” environment exposure is supposed to be the severest environmental condition to degrade the mechanical performance of polymeric materials [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19], which will deteriorate the long-term performance of FRP composite bridges. The combination of moisture and temperature effects seriously degraded the mechanical properties of FRP composites
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