Effect of Glass Fibres and Environments on Long-Term Durability of GFRP Composites.

Durability is a key feature that defines the value of composite materials. It is essential for the development of applications requiring good long-term performance to improve the understanding of long-term behavior of composites in various corrosive environments and to provide a basis for their structural design in specific environmental conditions. To evaluate GFRP material durability, stress-corrosion tests have been conducted on pultruded rods under constant tensile stress in a few representative environments such as strong acids, cement extract, salt water, tap water and deionized water. In addition to testing at room temperature, some of the tests have been conducted at 60°C to assess the accelerating effect of temperature. Comparison with long-term rupture tests under constant load in air was completed to assess the effect of environments. All these environmental stress-corrosion tests to failure were conducted with two sets of pultruded rods made with the same isophtalic polyester resin: one set reinforced with traditional boro-silicate E-glass and the other one reinforced with a boron-free, environmentally friendly, E-type of glass fiber (Advantex ® glass). These test results show a significant effect of the environmental conditions on the long-term performance of the GFRP composites and allow the determination of various reduction factors related to the effects of eac