SOLAR AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION EFFECT ON TENSILE STRENGTH AND GLASS TRANSITION TEMPERATURE OF GLASS FIBRE REINFORCED PLASTIC LAMINATES

摘要

In this study, solar and environmental degradation were performed for glass fibre/epoxy and glass fibre/vinyl ester composites. Tensile and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) tests were applied before and after degradations. Considering tensile strength, it is concluded that vinyl ester composite samples used in this study were more durable against environmental degradation compared to the epoxy based samples. On the contrary, epoxy based samples seemed to be more durable than those of the vinyl ester under solar degradation. Moreover, the glass transition temperature loss % of both two resins was very low after solar degradation. It was observed that the destructive effect of environmental degradation was more dominant than solar degradation, according to measurements of tensile strength and glass transition temperature values.