Mechanical behavior and long-term life prediction of carbon epoxy and glass epoxy composite laminates under artificial seawater environment

This paper presents an investigation on the long-term performance of carbon epoxy and glass epoxy laminates in an artificial seawater environment with 3.5% salinity. Accelerated aging tests were conducted at 60 °C for 45 days to characterize the long-term effect of seawater on the mechanical response of fiber-reinforced composite laminates. Several mechanical tests including tensile and 3-point bending tests have been carried out on the reference dry and aged standard samples at room temperature and 60 °C to evaluate tensile strength, youngâs modulus, flexural strength, secant and chord modulus of elasticity in the composite samples. The long-term behavior of carbon epoxy and glass epoxy samples under the service construction condition in the coast of Ireland was also predicted using Arrhenius degradation theory.This paper presents an investigation on the long-term performance of carbon epoxy and glass epoxy laminates in an artificial seawater environment with 3.5% salinity. Accelerated aging tests were conducted at 60 °C for 45 days to characterize the long-term effect of seawater on the mechanical response of fiber-reinforced composite laminates. Several mechanical tests including tensile and 3-point bending tests have been carried out on the reference dry and aged standard samples at room temperature and 60 °C to evaluate tensile strength, youngâs modulus, flexural strength, secant and chord modulus of elasticity in the composite samples. The long-term behavior of carbon epoxy and glass epoxy samples under the service construction condition in the coast of Ireland was also predicted using Arrhenius degradation theory.