Professional Documents
Culture Documents
of composites
John Summerscales
Outline of lecture
• glass transition temperature
• moisture
• osmosis and blistering
• cavitation erosion
• galvanic corrosion
• marine coatings
• antifouling paints
• flame, smoke and toxicity (FST)
Glass transition temperature (Tg)
• Tg is a function of:
o molecular structure
o ratio of chain ends to backbone polymer
o loading rate
o moisture content can reduce Tg
• A key design parameter in
aerospace applications is “hot wet Tg”
Moisture (Fickian diffusion)
equilibrium/saturation
Moisture content
√(time)
Osmosis ...
• Osmosis can be defined (Clegg, 1996) as
“the equalisation of solution strength
by passage of a liquid (usually water)
through a semi-permeable membrane
membrane
Solid surface
model from Lauterborn and Bolle (1975)
Cavitation erosion
• Collapsing bubble:
Solid surface
model from Lauterborn and Bolle (1975)
Cavitation erosion
• Collapsing bubble:
Solid surface
model from Lauterborn and Bolle (1975)
Cavitation erosion
• Collapsing bubble:
Solid surface
model from Lauterborn and Bolle (1975)
Cavitation erosion
• Collapsing bubble
creates jet towards a hard surface
which loosens material structure
and removes material:
Solid surface
model from Lauterborn and Bolle (1975)
Cavitation erosion
• Very limited data in public domain
• composites may perform better than metals
because fibre > grain size
o student projects* suggested
CFRP proportional loss in weight
only 40% of that for Al under identical conditions
o but difficult experiment
CFRP absorbs some water
may have low initial - but accelerating - loss rate
• certification required to
withstand 30 m high
kerosene flames and
temperatures of 1150°C