Effect of thermal cycling on mechanical and thermal properties of basalt fibre-reinforced epoxy composites

Abstract

Current study investigated the effect of thermal fatigue on mechanical and thermal properties of basalt fibre-reinforced polymer (BFRP) composites. To this, basalt fibre textiles in 2/2 twill pattern was used to fabricate BFRP composites. Thermal cycling experiment was carried out between $$-40$$ and $$+120^{\circ }$$ C for 20, 40, 60, 80 and 120 cycles. Moreover, dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) was used to evaluate the effect of thermal cycling on thermal properties of BFRPs. Moreover, we compared the extracted viscoelastic characteristics, such as storage modulus, loss modulus and loss factor curves with original thermal-treated BFRP specimens. Based on the results, thermal cycling affected the characteristics of composites in the post-curing stage due to an increase in temperature. Finally, the effect of thermal cycling on water absorption properties of BFRP composites was examined by hydrophobicity test. The results showed that tensile strength, flexural modulus and ILSS values increased with the increase in the number of cycles up to 80 cycles. In other words, an increase in the number of cycles increased the hydrophobicity of BFRP composites by decreasing the contact angles. Finally, the mechanical properties of tested composites were significantly decreased when the number of cycles reached 120. This was due to the mismatch of thermal expansion coefficient and long crack formation in the structure of composite.