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Fatigue Behaviour of Glass Fibre Reinforced Composites for Ocean Energy Conversion Systems

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Abstract

The development of ocean energy conversion systems places more severe requirements on materials than similar land-based structures such as wind turbines. Intervention and maintenance at sea are very costly, so for ocean energy supply to become economically viable long term durability must be guaranteed. Cyclic loading is a common feature of most energy conversion devices and composites are widely used, but few data are available concerning the fatigue behaviour in sea water of composite materials. This paper presents the results from an experimental study to fill this gap. The fatigue behavior of composite materials reinforced with different types of glass fibre is characterized in air and in sea water; the influence of testing in sea water rather than air is shown to be small. However, sea water ageing is shown to reduce the fatigue lifetime significantly and strongly depends on matrix formulation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the members of this project for advice and support, in particular to Claude Renaud, Paul Lucas and Georg Adolphs (OCV), Luc Peters (3B), Rolf Nickel and Christoph Kensche (Momentive), Dominique Perreux (MaHyTec) and Dominique Choqueuse, Nicolas Lacotte, Albert Deuff and Benoit Bigourdan (IFREMER Brest). A. Boisseau is now working at the CETIM in Nantes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IFREMER Centre de Brest, Materials and Structures group, 29280, Plouzané, France

    A. Boisseau & P. Davies

  2. Université de Franche-Comté, DMA/FEMTO-ST, 25000, Besançon, France

    F. Thiebaud

  3. MAHYTEC, 39100, Dole, France

    F. Thiebaud

Authors
  1. A. Boisseau
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  2. P. Davies
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  3. F. Thiebaud
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Correspondence to P. Davies.

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Boisseau, A., Davies, P. & Thiebaud, F. Fatigue Behaviour of Glass Fibre Reinforced Composites for Ocean Energy Conversion Systems. Appl Compos Mater 20, 145–155 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-012-9260-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-012-9260-0

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