Abstract
The paper aims to study the damage mechanism and damage evolution of carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy polymer (CFRP) composites under seawater sea sand concrete (SWSSC) environment in coastal, marine and ocean engineering. CFRP composites were exposed into the simulated SWSSC solution to carry out the accelerated corrosion experiment at 25 °C, 40 °C and 55 °C, respectively. The degradation mechanism was revealed using scanning electrical microscope, X-ray microscope and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The damage of CFRP composites is mainly induced by the hydrolysis of cured epoxy resin, and this process is accelerated in alkaline environment because the hydroxyl ions can react with the carboxylic acid resulting from hydrolyzation. Two approaches, chemical etching rate-based method and hydroxyl ions diffusion-based method, have been proposed. Their corresponding finite element models have been developed to predict the degradation of CFRP bars. The fidelity of the two approaches has been validated by comparing the predicted results with the test data.
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