The durability of E-glass vinyl ester composite materials subjected to environmental conditioning and sustained loading

A series of experiments has been performed to observe the effects of the combination of sustained load, elevated temperature, and moisture on the durability of an E-glass/vinyl ester composite material. This durability is evaluated in terms of the ultimate tensile strength of the material. The results have confirmed that moisture at elevated temperatures reduces the ultimate tensile strength of the material, as reported in previous studies. In these experiments, a sustained load has been applied to samples during the conditioning process and has been found to further reduce the composite durability. Conditioning also decreases the strain to failure, with a greater decrease overall for samples which were loaded during conditioning.