۱- Introduction

۲- Materials and experimental setup

۳- Experimental results and discussion

۴- Conclusions

References

Abstract

To reveal the effect of resin matrix on the behavior and damage mechanism of basalt fiber reinforced polymers (BFRPs), the static and fatigue properties of different resin matrixes based BFRP composites were experimentally investigated. Four types of resins were adopted in this paper. They were normal and toughened vinyl ester resins, and epoxy systems curing at room temperature and at elevated temperature. In parallel to the static and fatigue tests, the damage observation were conducted using in-situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation system embedded in the fatigue test equipment. The results showed that the resins played important roles in both of the static and fatigue behavior of BFRP composites. The static tensile strength of the normal vinyl ester resin based BFRP was similar to that of the BFRP with elevated temperature cured epoxy. However, the fatigue life of the former was significantly lower than that of the latter for more matrix cracking and fiber peeling occurred on the surface of the vinyl ester resin based BFRP. Although the static strength of the BFRP was lower with more ductile matrix like toughened vinyl ester or room temperature cured epoxy, the long-term fatigue strength level of BFRP increased with an increase in fracture elongation of the resins.

Introduction

During the last few decades, basalt fiber reinforced polymer (BFRP) has gotten increasing attentions in both industrial and academic world for its superior mechanical properties compared to glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) and less costs than carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) [1–۵]. The creep and fatigue properties of BFRPs is higher than that of GFRP composites [6,7]. BFRPs are promising materials for structures which are sensitive to fatigue loading [8,9]. Although the mechanical properties of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials are mainly determined by fiber properties, the fatigue properties of the composite materials varied for different matrices [10–۱۳]. Several studies have investigated the effect of the resin on mechanical especially fatigue properties of FRP laminates. Rassmann et al.[14] used different resin systems and compared the mechanical and water absorption properties of kenaf fiber and glass fiber reinforced polyester, vinyl ester and epoxy laminates. The results showed that the various resins had differing effects on FRP strength and hence different failure modes. Colombo et al. [15] studied the static and fatigue properties of BFRP laminates with vinylester and epoxy matrices and found that the mechanical properties of basalt reinforced epoxy composites were superior to those of vinyl ester and the macroscale failure modes were more compact.