The durability of carbon fiber/epoxy composites under hydrothermal ageing

Studies on fibre reinforced composites are now receiving greater attention. Industrial applications have been successful in areas like aerospace, automobile, marine, construction and sporting goods. The first generation of epoxy resins for use in carbon fibre composites are able to achieve optimized high stiffness modules and high heat resistance by a high crosslink density, reached through thermal curing. However, these formulations can be very toxic and brittle with low crack resistance, which was a major disadvantage for structural applications. In the last years the use of ionizing radiation as alternative to thermal curing has been proposed as an environmentally friendly process. Furthermore, in order to enhance toughness mechanical requirements for their applications, the formulation generally consists of blends of epoxy resins and engineering thermoplastics. In terms of durability (service life and reliability), in these materials it depends on different environmental conditions (temperature, moisture, etc.), and it is very important to know how their properties are modified after the exposure to different temperature and moisture absorption cycles. In this work carbon fibre composites produced by ionizing radiation induced curing of the epoxy based matrices have been subjected to thermal and moisture absorption ageing and the influence of these treatments on the thermal and mechanical properties has been investigated through dynamic mechanical thermal analysis and mechanical fracture toughness tests