The Tensile Creep Response of a Wood Plastic Composite in Cold Regions

摘要

The mechanical properties of wood-plastic composites (WPCs), like the polymers that comprise them, are extremely sensitive to temperature. While several WPC's have been tested in tensile creep at high temperatures, little data has been collected at cold temperatures. These materials are currently being used in cold regions in many infrastructure applications in Alaska without research into how the low temperatures will affect their mechanical properties. This study characterizes the behavior of a commercial WPC at both room (25°C) and cold (-10°C) temperatures and includes both quasi-static and creep testing. It was shown that the cold temperature causes an increase in the ultimate stress and initial modulus of elasticity of the WPC while the failure strain was unaffected. Furthermore, when the tensile creep response is represented by a power law, the time dependent exponent of the composite is unaffected by the cold temperatures. Additional testing at multiple cold temperatures is required to determine if WPCs time dependent exponent will remain constant over continued decreasing temperatures.