Effect of Fatigue Testing and Aquatic Environment on the Tensile Properties of Glass and Kevlar Fibers Reinforced Epoxy Composites

Menail Y,Abderrahim El Mahi

doi:10.4172/2168-9792.1000150

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental results of the influence of water ageing after mechanical on glassfiber composites, compared with Kevlar-fiber composites. The tested specimens were subjected to fatigue during various numbers of cycles (100 to 50000). After that, they were immersed into tap water and simulated seawater for different periods (4, 20 and 40 days). Next, the tensile tests were made on the unaged and aged samples in order to determine the evolution of the strength and stiffness under local interactions of the water absorption and fatigue. The obtained results showed that tensile characteristics were clearly affected by the immersion treatment and fatigue loading. In fact, the residual stiffness and residual strength decreased when the immersion time and cycle number of fatigue increased, indicating that the studied composites have experienced some forms of mechanical damage

Highlights

Fiber reinforced polymer composite materials are widely used in several constructions due to their various advantages: high stiffness to weight ratio, corrosion resistance, and low maintenance cost
The purpose of this paper is to describe the effect of the mechanical fatigue and accelerated ageing on two epoxy composite laminates reinforced with glass-fibers and Kevlar-fibers, respectively
In order to study the influence of fiber type on the static and fatigue behaviors of GFRP and KFRP composites, we present in Figures 2 and 3, the typical stress-strain curves and the loss of the load Fmax/F0max according to the number of cycles for both composites, respectively

Summary

Introduction

Fiber reinforced polymer composite materials are widely used in several constructions (marine, aerospace and automobile, etc.) due to their various advantages: high stiffness to weight ratio, corrosion resistance, and low maintenance cost. Glass and Kevlar fibers are the most widely used to reinforce composite structures. Kevlar fibers widely used as reinforcement within several advanced composites, which were developed during the 1960s. Their high degree of toughness, associated with the failure mechanism of Kevlar, and damage tolerance promote good impact/ ballistic performance. This is due to the low surface energy and the chemically inert surface of the Kevlar fiber, and to the poor interfacial adhesion between fiber and matrix [1,2,3,4]

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