Mechanical responses strength degradation

Much recent ongoing work has focused on the chemical degradation mechanisms and revealed that radical attack is the root cause of the membrane decomposition. However, there is still a lack of fundamental understanding of the mechanisms for the degradation of mechanical strength, which is related to the membrane failure mode responsible for the sudden death behavior of fuel cells. 

The time-to-failure of a structure or its components is an important issue for structural safety considerations in fire. On the basis of the strength degradation models for FRP materials under elevated and high temperatures developed in Chapter 5, the time-to-failure is predicted for GFRP tubes and laminates under both thermal and mechanical loading in compression. Temperature responses were again calculated using the thermal response model presented in Chapter 6. 

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