Long-term durability of CFRP under fatigue loading for marine applications

Abstract

Composite propellers are a major new development in the marine transport industry. The use of composite materials in seawater turbines is also of great interest to the marine renewable energy industry. Those systems present similarities being both constantly immersed in seawater, under fatigue loadings, of large dimensions, and they are often designed using Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP). Previous studies have shown sensitivity of some composite materials to the seawater environment mainly in the quasi-static loading domain. However, investigations now need to be performed on the behaviour of CFRP under seawater environment and fatigue loadings. In this study, CFRP samples were aged in natural seawater until saturation, in order to investigate the influence of water absorption on the fatigue properties of the material. Results showed a small decrease in fatigue lifetime under tension but a more significant drop for sample subjected to four point flexural fatigue.