Evaluation of oxidative behavior of polyolefin geosynthetics utilizing accelerated aging tests based on temperature and pressure

Polyolefin geosynthetics are susceptible to oxidation, which eventually leads to the reduction in their engineering properties. In the application of polyolefin geosynthetics, a major issue is an estimate of the materials durability (i.e. service lifetime) under various aging conditions. Antioxidant packages are added to the polyolefin products to extend the induction time, during which antioxidants are gradually depleted and polymer oxidation reactions are prevented.In this PhD study, an improved laboratory accelerating aging method under elevated and high pressure environments was applied to evaluate the combined effect of temperature and pressure on the depletion of the antioxidants and the oxidation of polymers. Four types of commercial polyolefin geosynthetic materials selected for aging tests included HDPE geogrid, polypropylene woven and nonwoven geotextiles. A total of 33 different temperature/pressure aging conditions were used, with the incubation duration up to 24 months. The applied oven temperature ranged from 35oC to 105oC and the partial oxygen pressure ranged from 0.005 MPa to 6.3 MPa. Using the Oxidative Induction Time (OIT) test, the antioxidant depletion, which is correlated to the decrease of the OIT value, was found to follow apparent first-order decay. The OIT data also showed that, the antioxidant depletion rate increased with temperature according to the Arrhenius equation, while under constant temperatures, the rate increased exponentially with the partial pressure of oxygen. A modified Arrhenius model was developed to fit the antioxidant depletion rate as a function of temperature and pressure and to predict the antioxidant lifetime under various field conditions. This study has developed new temperature/pressure incubation aging test method with lifetime prediction models. Using this new technique, the antioxidant lifetime prediction results are close to regular temperature aging data while the aging duration can be reduced considerably. Using the enhanced aging pressure and temperature with this aging method plus a new analytical methodology utilizing time-temperature-superposition and time-pressure-superposition techniques, the post-antioxidant lifetime (Stage C) of the materials can also be predicted and so a total lifetime for different polyolefin geosynthetics can be evaluated quantitatively.Ph.D., Civil/Geotechnical Engineering -- Drexel University, 200