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Procedia
Engineering
Procedia Engineering
Procedia 00 (2011)
Engineering 000–000
10 (2011) 2731–2736
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

ICM11

Influence of water absorption on creep behaviour of carbon

fiber/epoxy laminates
Hyojin Kim* and Kenichi Takemura
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kanagawa University, Yokohama, 221-8686, Japan

Abstract

The mechanical properties of polymer composites are changed in various environmental factor such as humid
condition, low and high temperatures, water vapor and long-term physical chemical stability. Carbon fiber/epoxy
laminates are fabricated to investigate the influence of the water absorption on flexural and creep behavior at 3-ponit
bending. To estimate the effect of extreme environment on creep behavior of carbon fiber/epoxy laminates,
specimens are absorbed in the distilled water for 24 hrs at 90℃, frozen for 24 hrs at -16℃ in refrigerator. The water
absorbed and frozen specimens are tested under 3-point loading at various temperature. Due to water molecules by
immersion in the water, the flexural strength of the absorbed and frozen specimen are lower than that of the normal
specimen. The steady state creep rate of the absorbed and frozen specimen are rapidly increased at 100℃ due to
delamination from buckling in inner part.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ICM11

Keywors: CFRP; creep behavior; Environmental effect; flexural properties; delamination

1. Introduction

Composite materials, mainly carbon fiber/epoxy laminates, are nowadays widespread in many
industrials, from sports equipment to aerospace, automobile, shipbuilding and construction industries to
reduce the weight with high strength and stiffness. Nevertheless, the structures made of composite
laminates are limited in these applications due to the lack of confidence in the prediction of the residual
properties in a long and/or short-term basis for a given loading history and environmental conditions.
Many structures encounter temperature in the range of +100 to -20℃. Often the upper temperature limits
can be above 100℃ and lower limits well below -20℃, which normally are special case. A factor that
invariably exists in combination with temperature is the humidity expresses as the relative humidity. A

1877–7058 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.04.455
2732 Hyojin Kim and Kenichi Takemura / Procedia Engineering 10 (2011) 2731–2736
2 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000

combination of humidity and temperature is most detrimental to the materials stability under service
conditions.
Some researchers have focused on the hygrothermal effects on mechanical properties of CFRP
laminates. Collings et al. [1] investigated experimentally the tensile strains present in the matrix after
curing were reduced by the generation of compressive strains caused by swelling of the matrix due to
moisture absorption. Kellas et al. [2] investigated the effect of hygrothermal environments upon the
uniaxial strength of center-notched CFRP laminates. Lafarie-Frenot [3] investigated the environmental
effects on fatigue damage of CFRP laminates. In composite materials, both the short-term and long-term
durability of the materials are important. While the structure may not fail when subjected to stresses over
a short period of time, it may be prone to failure or increased strain when subjected to stresses over an
extended period of time [4]. An understanding of the stability of carbon fiber/epoxy laminates has
prevented people from selecting this material for these structures. There are a number of factors causing
time-dependent deformations for CFRP laminates, including mechanical factors like creep deformation,
environmental factors like moisture absorption and temperature, any of which may cause dimensional
instability. Many researchers have point out that the change of temperature [5-7] and the moisture
absorption [4, 8-9] lead to decrease the tensile, compressive, fatigue and creep properties in carbon
fiber/epoxy laminates. Many papers have been published on long and short-term creep behaviour of CFRP
laminates at the change of temperatures, however, bibliographical references have not found about the
combination environments of humidity and temperature on CFRP laminates.
This study examines the short-term creep behaviour at various temperatures after water absorption and
freeze of CFRP laminates. First, CFRP laminates were absorbed water at high temperature, and then
frozen in refrigerator. The absorbed and frozen specimens on creep properties of the laminates were tested
at various temperatures.

2. Experimental details

2.1. Materials and fabrication

The material used in this study is the unidirectional carbon fiber, T300-3000 (CO6343) supplied by
Toray Industries, Inc. Matrix is epoxy resin, JER cure 828 supplied by Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. Prior
to composite fabrication, the carbon fiber was completely dried at 50℃ in the oven. The fiber content of
CFRP laminate was 64 vol% and all CFRP laminates were fabricated by hand lay-up method. The carbon

2.0 900 60
epoxy
CFRP 800 strength
Volume change rate, %

modulus 50
Flexural modulus, GPa
Flexural strength, MPa

700
1.5
600 40
500
1.0 30
400
300 20
0.5 200
10
100

0.0 0 0
absorbed frozen normal absorbed frozen
Kinds of specimen
Fig. 1 Volume change rate of epoxy resin and CFRP Fig. 2 Environmental effect on flexural properties of CFRP
raminates after water absorption and freezing laminates
 Hyojin Kim and Kenichi Takemura / Procedia Engineering 10 (2011) 2731–2736 2733
Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000 3

fibers and epoxy resin were placed in an aluminum matched-die mold. The molding temperature, pressure
and holding time were 90℃, 10 MPa and 3 hrs, respectively. And then the mold was cooled down to
room temperature by air.

2.2. Water absorption and freezing process

To investigate the effects of water absorption and freezing environment on the creep properties of
CFRP laminates, the specimens were immersed in distilled water for 24 hrs at 90℃ up to the saturation
water contents of 1%, and frozen at -20℃ in a freezer without drying process. Water contents in the
specimen were measured by the difference of weight throughout the immersion test. Specimens after
soaking were named “absorbed”, and frozen specimens after soaking were named “frozen” in this study.

2.3. Flexural and flexural creep properties

A static flexural test was conducted to obtain the flexural properties of CFRP laminate. The shape and
dimensions of the specimens were based on the testing standards JIS K7171. The span was 80 mm and
cross head speed and test temperature were 5 mm/min and 25℃, respectively.

0.7 0.7
normal
0.6 0.6 normal
absorbed absorbed
0.5 frozen frozen
0.5
Creep strain, %

Creep strain, %

0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1

0.0 0.0
0 30 60 90 120 150 0 30 60 90 120 150
Time, hrs Time, hrs
(a) 80℃ (b) 90℃
0.7 0.7

0.6 0.6

0.5 0.5
Creep strain, %

Creep strain, %

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3
normal
0.2 normal 0.2 absorbed
absorbed frozen
0.1 frozen
0.1

0.0 0.0
0 30 60 90 120 150 0 30 60 90 120 150
Time, hrs Time, hrs
(c) 100℃ (d) 110℃
Fig. 3 Environmental effects on creep behavior of CFRP laminates according to various temperature
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4 Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000

To investigate the creep behavior of CFRP laminates, flexural creep test (3-point) was carried out
under various temperature based on the test methods for flexural creep properties of CFRP (JIS K7088),
the environmental temperature was kept at 80, 90, 100 and 110℃. The test load was 40 N, which is 60%
(450MPa) of maximum flexural stress in this study.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Flexural behavior

Figure 1 shows the volume change rate of epoxy resin and CFRP lamination after water absorption
and freezing. After water absorption and freezing, the volume change rate of CFRP laminates was 57%
and 52% lower than that of the normal epoxy resin. In water environment, generally, water molecules
enter rapidly into the voids and crack between grain boundaries of the matrix that is crystal material, and
that is occur the dimensional changes of the material. On the other hand, CFRP laminates absorbed the
water molecules, but the rate of volume change was low due to carbon fiber as reinforcement. The
volume change rate of frozen specimen was higher than that of absorbed specimen due to the increase of
frozen water molecules under sub-zero in CFRP laminates.
The environmental effects on flexural properties of CFRP laminates were summarized in Fig. 2. In
case of normal specimen, the flexural strength of CFRP laminates was 17% higher than absorbed
specimen and 20% higher than frozen specimen, respectively. On the other hand, there were little change
in flexural strength and modulus of CFRP laminates after absorbed and frozen treatments. Therefore, it is
clear that flexural properties were drastically affected by absorbed water, and that the effect of frozen
water was little.

3.2. Creep behavior

Figure 3 shows the environmental effects on creep behavior of CFRP laminates according to test
temperatures, respectively. By the water absorption and freeze of CFRP laminates, the initial creep strain
becomes larger according to the increase of temperature. Especially, at 100℃ as shown in fig. 3(c), the
initial creep strain of the absorbed and frozen specimens was increased rapidly. The creep rate rapidly
decreases with time in an initial stage of the creep response and tends to disappear, regardless of

10 40
-1

Steady strain creep rate, 10 /h

Creep compliance x10 , Pa

9 normal normal
35
-3

absorbed absorbed
8
-9

frozen frozen
30
7

110 C 25
6
5 20
4 15
3 
90 C 10
2
5
1
0 0
10
3
10
4
10
5
10
6 80 90 100 110
o
Time, sec Temperature, C
Fig. 4 The creep compliance of CFRP laminate with the Fig. 5 Steady creep strain rate of CFRP laminate according to
absorbed and frozen specimen test temperature
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Author name / Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000 5

absorption and freeze of CFRP laminates. Finally, the creep deformation of CFRP laminate was destroyed
at all temperature. It can be explained that water molecules entered into the voids and crack of CFRP
laminates lead to plasticization and hydrolysis of the matrix. Especially, it is that hydrolysis of the matrix
induce the decrease of glass transition.
Figure 4 shows the creep compliance versus test time of CFRP laminates at 90℃ and 100℃, figure 5
shows the steady creep strain rate of CFRP laminates according to test temperature, respectively. The
creep compliance and the steady creep strain rate of the absorbed and frozen specimens were increase
rapidly at above 90℃, it indicate that the glass transition of the matrix was decreased by water molecules.
Aoki et al. [10] investigated the effect of hygrothermal condition on compression after impact strength of
CFRP laminates. They reported that glass transition temperature of the CFRP laminates is decreased by
water absorption. In case of this study, the decrease of glass transition by water absorption leads to
increase the void and cracks as well as debonding between fiber and matrix. It may be occurred that the
buckling of CFRP laminates under flexural loading and the delamination between fiber and matrix were
increased by the decline of glass transition temperature.

3.3. Microscope study

Figure 6 shows the microscope images of cross-section of CFRP laminate with absorption and freezing
at 90℃ (upper) and 100℃ (lower). Cross-sectional photographs were taken along the loading direction,
which is the vertical direction. It is clear that the delamination of CFRP laminates was progressed at 90℃,
and the amount of delamination was larger at 100℃ in the absorbed and frozen conditions, respectively.
The buckling of CFRP laminates was also observed in absorbed and frozen specimen at 100℃. It is
thought that the existence of this buckling and delamination proved the effect of water absorption and
freeze on the interfacial degradation between fiber and matrix.

(a) normal (b) absorbed (c) frozen

Fig. 6 Microscope observation of cross-section of CFRP laminates. 90℃ (upper), 100℃ (lower)
2736 Hyojin Kim and Kenichi Takemura / Procedia Engineering 10 (2011) 2731–2736
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4. Conclusions

In this study, the environmental effects on flexural properties and creep behavior of CFRP laminate
were investigated at various temperatures. The obtained results are summarized as follows:

(1) The volume change rate of CFRP laminates was 57% and 52% lower than that of epoxy resin after
absorption and freezing. Compared with the absorbed specimen, the volume change rate of the frozen
specimen was higher due to the increase of frozen water molecules.
(2) The flexural strength and modulus of the absorbed and frozen specimens were decreased
compared with the normal specimen, but the difference of flexural strength and modulus between the
absorbed and frozen specimen were little.
(3) The initial strain rate, creep compliance and steady creep strain rate of CFRP laminates was
increased rapidly at above 90℃ in the absorbed and frozen specimen due to the decrease of glass
transition by water molecules.
(4) The delamination of CFRP laminate was progressed at 90℃, the amount of delamination was
increased at 100℃ in the absorbed and frozen specimens.

References

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