Effect Of Temperature On The Mode II Fatigue Delamination Of A Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (Gfrp)

Abstract

A new technology of composite wrapped joints emerges as a promising solution for improving the longterm performance of connections between circular hollow sections (CHS). The use of composite materials is shown to improve the fatigue life of structures. However, a major challenge to the implementation of this technology is to ensure the long-term performance of the composite materials subjected to the operational conditions. This work aims to evaluate the effects of temperature changes on the fatigue delamination of a glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) for application in offshore structures. Specimens were manufactured by hand lay-up and series of experiments are performed to access delamination fatigue crack growth behavior in a range of operational temperatures: -10, 21 and 70 °C. Displacement controlled end-notched flexure (ENF) tests were applied to measure the fatigue behavior together with a digital image correlation (DIC) system to monitor the displacements during the tests. Results show that the delamination fatigue performance of the composite material is not significantly affected by the range of tested temperatures. The fracture behavior also remained unchanged. Standard ENF test method has limited range of crack growth to evaluate the fatigue behavior of composite laminates.