Effects of Environment on Fracture Toughness of Woven Carbon/Epoxy Composite

摘要

Fracture toughness of a material has immense importance in the determination of the resistance of the material to crack propagation. In this article, an experimental investigation has been carried out on the fracture toughness of woven carbon fibre reinforced composite after exposing to various adverse environments, like, water, saline water, acidic water, organic fuel, ice temperature and hot air of 60℃, for different durations using single edge notched (SEN) specimens. A relationship between fracture toughness and duration of exposure under these adverse environments has been established. The fracture toughness has been found to decrease continuously with increased duration of environmental exposure, whereas the fracture toughness has been found to be independent of pre-crack length.