An Environmental Stress Cracking (ESC) test to study the ageing of biopolymers and biocomposites

An Environmental Stress Cracking test was used to investigate damage to glass fiber reinforced poly(lactic acid) based biocomposites. The study was performed in water. The main advantages were a significant decrease in experiment duration compared to natural, artificial or accelerated tests and an increase in the reliability of the results. Depending on the specific nature of the glass fiber used, significant types of failure behavior were observed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.