Correlation of accelerated aging and natural aging of glass fiber reinforced bromide epoxy vinyl ester composites

The natural aging of glass fiber reinforced bromide epoxy vinyl ester composites was investigated in Wanning and Lasa stations of Chinese typical climate regions. Its accelerated aging experiments including hydrothermal, hot air, light and hot water were studied in laboratory at the same time. The mechanical properties including tensile strength, flexural strength, and compressive strength of glass fiber reinforced bromide epoxy vinyl ester composites after aging were tested. By using the grey correlation analysis method, the relationship between the natural aging and accelerated aging was calculated. The results show that the accelerated light aging has the best correlation with the natural aging, whose correlation degree reaches to 0.75 when taking compressive strength as property indicator. Accelerated factor (AF) and accelerated switch factor (ASF) between natural aging and accelerated light aging are obtained. The ultimate ASF in Lasa and Wanning is 5.28 and 7.25, respectively.