Mechanical Behaviour of Freeze- Thaw Loaded Fibrous Polymeric Composites

Abstract

Mechanical Performances as well as mechanism of fracture and failure of fibrous polymeric composites are affected by their exposure to the various experimental conditions such as exposure to the ambience, to the sub-zeros temperatures and to the fast freeze-thaw and slow freeze-thaw cycles. In addition to the above factors, the strain rate i.e. the rate of loading also plays an important role in deciding the mode of failure in these composites. Hand-laid glass/epoxy,carbon epoxy and glass-carbon/epoxy hybrid composites are exposed to the ambient, cryogenic, fast freeze-thaw and slow freeze-thaw conditions . the tensile strength of these materials with the varied exposures is measured under different loading rates. Also the inter laminar shear strength of these composites with the varied exposure is recorded at different cross head speeds