Environmental effects on mechanical properties of E-glass fiber reinforced unsaturated polyester composites

The use of polymer matrix composites is diverse and far reaching touching all industry sectors. Due to their low density and acceptable specific mechanical properties they have great potential for use in ranging from gas and petroleum industries to petrochemical engineering. This work is focused on fabrication a kind of polymeric composite using E-glass fiber as reinforcement and unsaturated polyester as matrix. The main aim of this study is to evaluate the mechanical properties of E-glass reinforced unsaturated polyester composites in different chemical environments consist of 10Wt% NaOH, 3Wt% H2SO4 and 10Wt% NaCL with varying immersion times. Samples were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) while three point bend tests were performed to study the flexural strength of the composites. Hardness and tension strength of composites have been also investigated. Results showed that increasing the immersion time caused a decrease in mechanical properties.