Long-Term Creep Behavior of Flax/Vinyl Ester Composites Using Time-Temperature Superposition Principle

Natural fibers have great potential to be used as reinforcement in composite materials. Cellulose, being a critical constituent of natural fibers, provides unquestionable advantages over synthetically produced fibers. Increasing demand for use of bio-based composites in different engineering and structural applications requires proper test methods and models for predicting their long-term behavior. In the present work, the time-temperature superposition principle was successfully applied to characterize creep behavior of flax/vinyl ester composites. The creep compliance vs time curves were determined and shifted along the logarithmic time axis to generate a master compliance curve. The time-temperature superposition provided an accelerated method for evaluation of mechanical properties of bio-based composites, and the results suggest that the time-temperature superposition is a useful tool for accelerated testing of long-term behavior of bio-based composites.