Hygrothermal ageing of plant oil based marine composites

In this paper, the effect of hygrothermal ageing on the flexural properties of glass/epoxy, glass/linseed oil and glass/castor oil composites is reported. Plant oil based resins offer renewable and potentially less toxic alternatives to conventional largely petroleum based marine composites. The long-term performance of these novel composites needs to be investigated and understood before using them in structural applications. In this research it was found that in the unaged condition, the flexural properties of glass/epoxy were significantly higher than both glass/castor oil and glass/linseed oil composites. After ageing in water at 40 °C for 46 weeks, the properties of glass/castor oil were comparable to glass/epoxy while the properties of glass/linseed oil were remarkably lower. The decrease in glass/linseed oil performance was explained in terms of the changes in the failure modes caused by moisture uptake.