PREDICTING THE ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION OF FRP

摘要

One hindrance to the extended use of FRP remains the accurate prediction of the material durability with regard to environmental degradation (1). The need for optimal design and maintenance procedures requires a good understanding of environmental effects on the material and the availability of an accurate method for effects quantification and prediction. Therefore, efforts worldwide are devoted to the modeling of the environmental degradation process (1). The environmental degradation process of FRP comprises various single processes interacting together. These processes are the chemical reaction of degradation, ultra violet radiation degradation process and diffusion. These processes are affected by variables such as temperature, stress state and material type. Degradation modeling requires each single process as well as the interaction with the other processes to be modeled. This paper presents a mathematical model of environmental degradation of FRP, which is intended to quantify and predict environmental effects on FRP from short-term testing.