2010 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Damage Evolution and Long-Term Durability of Polymer Matrix Composite in Water Environment

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20560089
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Materials/Mechanics of materials
Research Institution	Waseda University
Principal Investigator	KAWADA Hiroyuki Waseda University, 理工学術院, 教授 (20177702)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	KOYANAGI Jun 宇宙航空研究開発機構(JAXA), 助教 (60386604)
Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha)	KOTANI Masahiro 早稲田大学, 理工学術院, 助手 (80547042)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2010
Keywords	破壊 / 複合材料 / 応力腐食割れ / 界面劣化
Research Abstract	The aim of this research is to investigate the long term durability of GFRP in hydrothermal environment and to propose its lifetime prediction model. The GFRP under study is consisted with plain E-glass cloth and vinylester resin. The constant tensile load tests were conducted in hydrothermal environment (i.e. deionized water) and in air. The fracture occurred only in hydrothermal environment and the fracture time decreased with the increase in the applied stress and the temperature. The fracture time was predicted based on Reiner-Weissenberg criterion and the predicted results showed good agreement with the experimental data by considering the degradation induced by the hydrothermal aging and its acceleration by the increasing temperature.