Environmental fatigue behavior of non-crimp, E-glass fiber reinforced polyester composites for marine applications

This study is aimed to find the fatigue behavior of Glass Reinforced Plastics, a material which is a widely preferred material for small marine crafts, as well as several other applications. The type of composite tested is hand-laid E-glass non-crimp reinforcements with an polyester resin matrix. The specimens were produced in two standard thicknesses and with these material directions and were tested both under atmospheric and simulated seawater environments for fatigue. It was seen that the results of fatigue lifetime obtained by testing the material in seawater is much lower than the results obtained from testing similar specimens under atmospheric conditions. However, the stress curves indicate the same slope, suggesting that the fatigue failure mechanism of both testing conditions is the same and the fiber-related factors dominate. It was found that the thickness and material direction did not have a significant effect on the fatigue behavior of the material.