With the advance of composite materials in the past 50 years, fiber-reinforced polymer sheet piles are becoming increasingly popular in the marine and waterfront applications. While these materials possess high strength-to-weight ratio and are corrosion resistant, their durability in water has been not well studied due to the lack of historical data for these fairly new materials. / The purpose of this research is to establish the absorption characteristics of a pultruded fiberglass-reinforced polyester composite for a sheet pile wall and quantify the effect of water on long term mechanical properties. The tests conducted were water absorption, tensile strength, flexural strength, and freeze/thaw cycling. An analytical model was developed to establish the nature of the absorption process and prediction of the change in mechanical properties. / The results indicated that the water absorption process of the material followed a combination of Fickian diffusion and polymeric relaxation. The moisture saturation was 1.72% for the flange and 3.11% for web. The absorption process modeling indicated that saturation would be reached in 4.5 years for flange and 7 years for web in tap water, at room temperature. The coefficients of diffusion calculated were 4.2 10-6 mm2/s and 3.0 10-6 mm2/s respectively. During the water absorption test at 70°C and in boiling water, a mass loss of the material occurred. Tensile strength was found to decrease with the increase in percentage of water absorbed with no further degradation seen after saturation was reached. There was a decrease of 60% in the tensile strength at saturation. On the other hand, there was no noticeable change in the tensile modulus of elasticity during the water-ageing period. The freeze/thaw cycling test revealed that there were no significant changes in the tensile strength and the modulus after 564 cycles from 4.4°C to -17.8°C.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.31055 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Kouadio, Kouassi Serge P. |
| Contributors | Shao, Yixin (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Engineering (Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001810514, proquestno: MQ70236, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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