Experimental Research on Outgassing Rate of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics with Different Surface Topographies

In this paper, an experimental system based on the differential pressure method was designed to measure the outgassing rate of glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) with different surface topographies. Two GFRP samples with different surface topographies were fabricated with two different mesh numbers of abrasive paper, #500 and #100. The surface topographies and roughnesses of the GFRP samples were measured by a scanning probe microscope. The outgassing rates of the GFRP samples with different surface topographies were tested at different temperatures. It is demonstrated from experimental results that the higher GFRP temperature leads to the higher pressure range of the gas in the measurement chamber, accordingly the greater gas quantity released from GFRP, and consequently the larger outgassing rate of GFRP, and that the larger surface roughness of GFRP causes the greater outgassing rate.