Artificial Thermal Ageing of Polyester Reinforced and Polyvinyl Chloride Coated Technical Fabric.

Architectural fabric AF9032 has been subjected to artificial thermal ageing to determine changes of the material parameters of the fabric. The proposed method is based on the accelerated ageing approach proposed by Arrhenius. 300 mm x 50 mm samples were cut in the warp and fill directions and placed in a thermal chamber at 80 °C for up to 12 weeks or at 90 °C for up to 6 weeks. Then after one week of conditioning at ambient temperature, the samples were uniaxially tensioned at a constant strain rate. Experimentally, the parameters were determined for the non-linear elastic (linear piecewise) and viscoplastic (Bodner-Partom) models. Changes in these parameters were studied with respect to the ageing temperature and ageing period. In both cases, the linear approximation function was successfully applied using the simplified methodology of Arrhenius. A correlation was obtained for the fill direction between experimental results and the results from the Arrhenius approach. For the warp direction, the extrapolation results exhibited some differences. Increasing and decreasing tendencies have been observed at both temperatures. The Arrhenius law was confirmed by the experimental results only for the fill direction. The proposed method makes it possible to predict real fabric behavior during long term exploitation, which is a critical issue in the design process.