Intrinsic Impact and Fatigue Property Degradation of Composite Materials in Sea Water
Abstract
Durability and dynamic failure properties are critical parameters for naval composite ships in seawater. However, previous measurements have significantly underestimated the intrinsic durability of composite structures. In this study, a new composite "fish tank" approach was developed to accurately simulate the material/mechanics conditions of composite structures in seawater. Four E-glass/vinyl ester composite specimens were weakly bonded together to form a seawater tank. Therefore, only one surface of each composite specimen was exposed to seawater and this surface was subjected to drop-weight impact, which is very similar to the dynamic failure process of ship structures subjected to underwater explosion. A series of experiments of dry and wet composite specimens were conducted to characterize the impact damage, and the residual compression strength. Results of more than 50 specimens with more than 21-month seawater exposure show that the compression after impact strengths of the wet specimens reduced less than 9% compared to the dry baseline specimens. Therefore, durability of current marine composite is much better than previously measured. Our simple and novel "fish tank" durability experiment is expected to provide accurate justification for the required maintenance period of new composite ship structures.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 26, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA520825
Entities
People
- L. Roy Xu
Organizations
- Vanderbilt University