Durability study of a polymeric composite material for structural applications

Abstract An experimental study was carried out to investigate the mechanical behavior of a structural carbon based composite for infrastructure industry. Creep and load relaxation experiments were conducted to investigate the rate sensitivity behavior for a temperature range of 20–60°C. The results show that the mechanical properties were degraded under elevated temperature conditions. A threshold stress was measured, at any given temperature, below which no observable strain rate is detected. Results show that load relaxation experiment can be used as an effective tool to study durability and long‐time creep behavior. The load relaxation test methodology for the prediction of model parameters was found to be more time and cost efficient than traditional long‐time creep tests.