Abstract: Hybrid fibers consisting of glass fiber and ramie fiber reinforced composites were fabricated. Combined with the actual situation of ship in service, three different accelerated aging, including water, salt fog and ultraviolet, of the hybrid composite materials were tested. The changes of the tensile strength and bending strength of the composites under different aging time and different aging temperature and the trend of performance degradation were investigated. Residual strength model was used to predict the residual strength of composite materials. It shows that the moisture absorption trend of the sample is mainly driven by the concentration gradient of FICK diffusion at the initial phase. The degree of the the material strength degradation changes with different aging environments. The results shows that, the damage of water is greater than salt-fog which is greater than ultraviolet. According to the residual strength model, after 10 years of aging, residual strength of specimens in salt fog environment can maintain 78%, and the residual strength of specimen in ultraviolet environment can maintain 81.89%.

Key words: glass fiber, hybrid composite materials, aging study, mechanical properties, life prediction