Thermo-oxidation behaviour of composite materials at high temperatures: A review of research activities carried out within the COMEDI program

The present paper presents a review of the main activities carried out within the context of the COMEDI research program, a joint collaboration involving three research teams focusing on the thermo-oxidation behaviour of composite materials at high temperatures. The scientific aim of the COMEDI research program was to better identify the link between the physical mechanisms involved in thermo-oxidation phenomena: oxygen reaction–diffusion, chemical shrinkage strain/stress, degradation at different scales and to provide tools for predicting the thermo-oxidation behaviour of composite materials under thermo-oxidative environments including damage onset. This aim was accomplished by investigating experimentally the thermo-oxidation behaviour of pure resin samples – both industrial and “model” materials – and by interpreting the results by a coupled reaction–diffusion–mechanics multiphysics model. A dedicated numerical model tool has been developed and implemented into the ABAQUS ® finite element commercial software. This tool was employed to simulate the thermo-oxidative behaviour of a fibre-matrix microscopic representative composite cell. Finally, the model predictions for the composite have been validated by comparing the experimental and the simulated local matrix shrinkage displacements and the mass loss of composite specimens.