Hygrothermal ageing of composite structures. Part 2: Mitigation techniques, detection and removal

The first section of this work is dedicated to the exposure of possible methodologies and solutions that can be implemented to face hygrothermal ageing effects, avoiding reduction of service-life and increasing safety margins. It's underlined the importance of the material and manufacturing process selection, and its impacts on issues related to the hygrothermal ageing. Nanofiller, Surface and fiber treatments are investigated and the their influence on the moisture uptake is discussed. The second part is dedicated to the technique used to detect and remove moisture. It shows how an early detection and the moisture removal can be useful to elongate the service-life and to avoid irreversible loss of mechanical properties. Particular emphasis is given to innovative structural health monitoring (SHM) systems combined with fiber optic sensors, which allows to check on board, real-time, the status of composite component subjected to moisture aggression, thus keeping high performance standards, while preventing failures.