Sea water effect on failure behaviour of mechanically fastened composites

In this study, sea water effect on failure behaviour was investigated for mechanically fastened composites that are oriented as [0/90/45/-60](s). The laminated composite specimens were fastened with two serial fasteners and were tested under non-immersed and immersed conditions, i. e. in sea water for 200 days. The experiments were carried out according to D 5229/D 5229M standard test method for evaluation of moisture absorption properties and equilibrium conditioning of polymer matrix composite materials. The results point out that the immersion into sea water of the composite specimens can cause a decrease in failure loads of both, pinned and bolted joints, particularly.