Study on effect of water soaking conditions on properties and morphology of glass fiber-cement-polyester composites

Glass fiber-cement-polyester composites with different weight percentages (wt.%) of glassfiber and cement were fabricated in the present work through hand lay-up process. Com-posites were made to undergo different soaking conditions viz., water soaking at roomtemperature, and boiling water soaking. Unsoaked (as prepared) composites, water-soakedat room temperature, and boiling water soaked samples were tested as per ASTM standardsfor tensile and flexural strengths. The design of experiments (DOE) based on the full facto-rial design (33= L27) is applied to optimize the response variables using MINITAB-18. Resultsrevealed that increasing the wt.% of glass fiber enhanced flexural and tensile strengths.Increasing the wt.% of cement deteriorated the tensile strength but increased the flexuralstrength. However, specimen subjected to water soaking conditions exhibited a decline inboth tensile and flexural strengths.