FRP for Marine Application

Fiber Reinforced Plastics (FRPs) are widely used in marine sector owing to their high specific strength and resistance to marine corrosion. For naval application, additional advantages are transparency to radar wave and better vibration damping than metals. The use of various FRPs in off-shore structures and marine vessels needs analysis of desired properties considering the types of matrices and fiber. The common consideration is effect of sea water on the properties of the FRP. This chapter gives a brief on use of different FRPs in various areas such as off-shore pillars, Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) enclosers, primary and secondary marine components. A brief discussion is included here on diffusion models and estimation of durability by a time-temperature superposition principle applied to water ingress and corresponding change in mechanical strength of FRPs with examples. The effect of microbial activity on the damage of FRP is not very much reported in literature. It is known that sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) are the most damaging microbes for FRP. In conclusion, it is highlighted that vinyl-ester-based FRPs using glass and carbon fibers are best for marine application. To determine the realistic service life in marine environment, Vinyl Ester- FRP (VE-FRP) are to be simultaneously studied for damage due to sea water and the microbes such SRB.

Rubber aging life prediction based on interpolation and improved time-temperature superposition principle

With focus on quickly and accurately predicting and evaluating the aging performance degradation of rubber at room temperature, the pseudo-failure life at each different acceleration temperature is proposed to be calculated by interpolation method based on indoor high temperature accelerated aging data, and on the basis of the obtained pseudo-failure life.By introducing the time–temperature equivalence principle, a shift factor obeying to an Arrhenius law is derived, and master curves are built as well for the compression set as for the ultimate mechanical properties.The concept of the sum of squares of dispersion coefficient errors is proposed to evaluate the prediction accuracy.Meanwhile a quantitative calculation method that considers the effect of temperature on the performance degradation curve and the shift factor is innovatively proposes.The results show that the proposed optimization method based on the traditional time-temperature superposition principle can quickly process the aging life at room temperature, and the prediction results are distributed within the 3-fold dispersion line, which can well meet the engineering requirements. The reduction of the DSC value from 1.4164 to 1.0828 further demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method above. This method can provide some reference for other related polymer materials accelerated aging data processing and life prediction.

Experimental Study on Statistic Failure Properties of Composite Considering Temperature Effect

Advanced composite has been widely used in many fields with high mechanical performance requirements. Aim to characterize the reliability of composite, a statistic failure model was established based on Weibull distribution. Strength tests at various temperatures were conducted under tensile, compressive and in-plane shear loading conditions. As the temperature rises from 25 °C to 180°C, the strengths at different loading conditions reduces by nearly 60% except that the longitudinal tensile one reduces by only 16%. Equivalent strength at reference temperature was obtained based on time-temperature superposition principle. Then, the model parameters were determined with transferred test data using the median rank method, and statistic characterizations of different strength properties were further studied. Results show that the failure probability of composite is independent of temperature. Among all the strengths, the longitudinal compressive strength possesses the smallest shape parameter and correlation coefficient R of the fitting result, which means the strongest randomness of failure.

Comparative Analysis of the Mechanical Behaviour of PEF and PET Uniaxial Stretching Based on the Time/Temperature Superposition Principle

Poly(ethylene 2,5-furandicarboxylate), PEF and poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, are two polyesters with close chemical structures. It leads to similar thermal, mechanical and barrier properties. In order to optimize their stretching, a strategy based on the time/temperature principle is used. The building of master curves, in the linear visco-elastic domain, allows the identification of the experimental conditions for which the two materials are in the same physical state. The initial physical state of the materials is important as, to fit with the industrial constrains, the polymers must reach high level of deformation, and develop strain induced crystallization (SIC). In this paper, the screening of the forming range is described, as well as the mechanical response depending on the stretching settings. Moreover, the same mechanical response can exist for PEF and PET if the same gap from the α-relaxation exists.

Study on Cyclic Compressive and Dynamic Mechanical Properties of Porous Polyurethane Composites Prepared with Hollow Silica Microspheres

Porous polycaprolactone-based polyurethane composites containing hollow silica microspheres were synthesized by one-step bulk polymerization. The effects of incorporated hollow silica microspheres on the cyclic compressive and dynamic mechanical properties of the composites were examined. Cyclic compression testing was carried out to record the accumulated stress versus strain profiles during 100 continuous loading and unloading cycles and to study the compressive behavior and time-dependent recovery of the composites. The effects of frequency on the dynamic mechanical properties of the composites was also investigated using a dynamic mechanical analyzer. Cole–Cole and Wicket plots were drawn to check the validity of the time-temperature supposition of the composites in the temperature and frequency ranges considered. Master curves of the composites were constructed based on the time-temperature superposition principle to obtain the long-term dynamic mechanical behavior of the composites.