An Environmental Stress Cracking (ESC) test to study the ageing of biopolymers and biocomposites

N. Pons (1) , Anne Bergeret (1) , J. -C. Benezet (1) , Laurent Ferry (1) , F. Fesquet (2)

1 Pôle MPA - Pôle Matériaux Polymères Avancés
2 UM2 - Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques

An Environmental Stress Cracking test was used to investigate damage to glass fiber reinforced poly(lactic acid) based biocomposites. The study was performed in water. The main advantages were a significant decrease in experiment duration compared to natural, artificial or accelerated tests and an increase in the reliability of the results. Depending on the specific nature of the glass fiber used, significant types of failure behavior were observed.

Mots clés: Biocomposite; Glass fiber; Sizing; Ageing; Environmental stress cracking

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

N. Pons, Anne Bergeret, J. -C. Benezet, Laurent Ferry, F. Fesquet. An Environmental Stress Cracking (ESC) test to study the ageing of biopolymers and biocomposites. Polymer Testing, 2011, 30 (3), pp.310-317. ⟨10.1016/j.polymertesting.2010.11.015⟩. ⟨hal-02949491⟩