Research on the Decolorization of Epoxy Polymer by Accelerated Solar Radiation Test

Abstract

There are a number of effects by solar radiation in many aerospace industrial fields, such as degradation of mechanical properties, sealing effect of sealants or decolorization. Because it takes long time to investigate these effects by using the light of natural state, new methods are developed for accelerating this phenomenon. In this paper, we developed an apparatus to simulate accelerated solar radiation phenomenon selecting irradiation intensity 1,120W/m 2 as the designed environment. Epoxy polymer as the composite material was chosen and processed by ASTM-D638, a reference for tensile test of polymer and plastic. Total color shift was selected as the test category to evaluate acceleration of the test. We obtained acceleration factors and numerical model from test data and concluded it can shorten test periods by accelerated irradiation intensity of 1,120W/m