Effects of seawater immersion on a glass fibre reinforced bioepoxy mechanical properties and its application in the ship hull finite-element analysis

Currently, there is a grown tendency to manufacture environmentally more sustainable composite structures. In this work, a glass fibre reinforced bioepoxy composite was manufactured and submerged in seawater for a bioactivity period of six months. Tensile and flexural tests were performed in order t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Velasco Parra, Jorge Antonio, Ramón Valencia, Bladimir Azdrúbal, López Arraiza, Alberto
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/75023
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/75023
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:polymer matrix composite
glass fibre reinforced bioepoxy
material testing
mechanical properties
finite-element analysis
seawater
Descripción
Sumario:Currently, there is a grown tendency to manufacture environmentally more sustainable composite structures. In this work, a glass fibre reinforced bioepoxy composite was manufactured and submerged in seawater for a bioactivity period of six months. Tensile and flexural tests were performed in order to characterize the new composite before and after seawater immersion. A drop of 20% in Young´s modulus and 9% in tensile strength were observed after immersion. The same trend was analyzed in both the flexural modulus and flexural strength with a fall of 18% and 6% respectively. It is also remarkable a higher ductility of the specimen after seawater immersion due to a plastification process by moisture absorption. That results were confirmed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Given the mechanical behaviour of the new composite, a L= 6.26 meters in length shiphull was designed. Structural analysis was conducted on the suitability and reliability of the composite by using ANSYS software. The simulations revealed the optimal structural performance of the new design even in the extreme sagging situation. To sum up, SuperSap ® bioepoxy resin is a suitable matrix to manufacture small glass fibre shiphulls.