CHARACTERIZATION AND MODELING OF COMPOSITE MATERIAL BEHAVIOUR SUBMITTED PREVIOUSLY TO FIRE EXPOSURE

Abdelkibir Benelfellah (1) , Thi Hai Yen Quach (1) , Damien Halm (1) , Thomas Rogaume (1) , Denis Bertheau (1)

1 PPrime [Poitiers] - Institut Pprime [UPR 3346]

Hydrogen is expected to be highly valuable energy carrier for the 21 th century as it should participate in answering main society and economical concerns. To exploit the benefits of this energy at large scale, further research and technological developments are required in order to secure its storage, especially during fire exposure. Thus, studies on the mechanical and the thermal behaviours of the composite used in the manufacture of tanks for the storage of hydrogen are important. At present, the use of epoxy/carbon fibre composites is developed widely because of its low weight and its good mechanical properties. Thus, the present study focusses on the thermal degradation property and the influence of a fire or a heating source on the residual mechanical behaviour of such materials. To account for this point, an experimental study is introduced in order to improve the understanding of thermal degradation and fire exposure mechanisms of composite using different "elementary" samples (±12°, ±45°, 90° and quasi-isotropic samples). Firstly, to characterize the mechanical properties versus temperature, tensile tests are performed on samples submitted in situ to 4 homogeneous temperature conditions up to 150°C. Secondly, to characterize the mechanical properties versus fire exposure, a thermal degradation is performed using a cone calorimeter (ISO 5660) on carbon/epoxy composite samples. These tests are led for various heat flux values and are stopped at different characteristic times. The other thermal parameters under consideration are the density of energy, the presence (or not) and the duration of the inflammation. Then, the mechanical properties are characterized using tensile test on samples submitted at first to different fire time exposure. The evolution of the elastic properties and ultimate stress show that the density of energy is the main factor leading to a change of the mechanical properties and char thickness evolution.

Mots clés: Composite materials; high-pressure vessels; thermo-mechanical behaviour; modelling; delamination

Domaines: Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]; Matériaux; Mécanique des structures [physics.class-ph]

Abdelkibir Benelfellah, Thi Hai Yen Quach, Damien Halm, Thomas Rogaume, Denis Bertheau. CHARACTERIZATION AND MODELING OF COMPOSITE MATERIAL BEHAVIOUR SUBMITTED PREVIOUSLY TO FIRE EXPOSURE. 20th International Conference on Composite Materials, Jul 2015, Copenhagen, Denmark. ⟨hal-02966147⟩