Influence of post-curing on long-term fissuring behavior of glass-vinyl ester composites in aqueous solution during mechanical loading

The separated and coupled effects of an hydrothermal environment and a mech anical loading on a long term behaviour of glass-vinylester composites have been studied as a function of post-curing conditions. It appears that the lack of post-curing does not affect significantly neither the water absorpt ion nor the residual mechanical properties after a simple hydrothermal agin g (even after 1000 h), On the contrary, it has been shown that a lack of po st-curing turns out to be highly prejudicious for the material when subject ed to the coupled effects of a same hydrothermal aging and constant mechani cal loads, even low ones: lifetimes are divided by 100 because of a modific ation of damage processes. Moreover, it is also proved that standard hydrot hermal aging tests are unable to predict the materials behaviour under hydr othermomechanical conditions (i.e. environmental stress-cracking). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.