Creep relaxation and fully reversible creep of foam core sandwich composites in seawater

Foam core sandwich composites were subjected to (i) creep to failure, (ii) cyclic creep-relaxation and (iii) fully reversible cyclic creep loading in seawater in order to mimic an actual ship hull’s service lifetime scenario. The results indicate a strong dependence of lifetime on the mode of loading. A significant reduction in the overall life was observed under cyclic creep as compared with the conventional creep to failure. Creep relaxation (R=1) tests were performed at loading-relaxation periods of 24/24, 24/12, 24/6, 12/12 and 6/6 h, while the fully reversible (R=-1) creep tests were conducted at loading-reversed loading times of 36/36, 24/24, 12/12, 6/6, and 3/3 h. The results suggest that creep-relaxation lifetime characteristics depend predominantly on the relaxation time as opposed to loading times, i.e. longer relaxation periods lead to shorter life. Whereas, fully reversible creep appears to be dependent upon the number of reversals whereby, life is observed to reduce as the number of reversals increase. These significant observations are explained in terms of various possible paths to interface cell wall collapse. Modes of failure were predominantly indentation and core compression in the vicinity of the loading site.