FATIGUE CHARACTERIZATION OF GLASS FIBRE - BIO BASED THERMOSET COMPOSITE INTENDED FOR OFFSHORE RENEWABLE ENERGY APPLICATIONS

The harsh and corrosive marine environment poses a challenge in terms of efficiency, maintenance and durability of the steel structures used in offshore renewable energy structures. Fiber reinforced composites are a suitable alternative owing to their excellent corrosion resistance. However, the industry refrains from large-scale implementation of composite offshore energy structures due to the lack of understanding about the behaviour of composites. With the aim of filling these research gaps FIBREGY Horizon 2020 EU, funded project was initiated to enable the extensive use of the FRP materials in the next generation of Offshore Wind and Tidal Power (OWTP) structures. In this research, the fatigue behaviour of glass fiber/bio-based thermoset composite is investigated by subjecting the coupons (±45°) to fatigue loading instrumented with thermography, strain gauge and acoustic-emission transducers. In addition to obtaining an S-N curve, the damage induced by fatigue loading is quantified in terms of heat dissipation and acoustic energy for rapid estimation of the fatigue limit using temperature stabilization method.