YB-2 aviation polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is irradiated in a xenon arc lamp weather resistance
test chamber for 1620 hours. The tensile strength, light transmittance, surface morphology,
relative molecular mass, infrared absorption spectrum and glass transition temperature (Tg) of
PMMA exposed in xenon arc lamp for different durations are tested and characterized by universal
testing machine, optical haze instrument, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), gel permeation
chromatograph (GPC), fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) and differential scanning
calorimetry (DSC), so as to comprehensively analyze the influence of xenon arc lamp irradiation
on the performance of PMMA. The results reveal that under the effect of 1620 hours xenon arc
lamp irradiation and periodic spraying water, the light transmittance and glass transition temperature
do not change significantly, and no new chemical group is produced. After irradiated 360
hours, tiny cracks occur in the surface of PMMA, indicating that they occur at a certain degree of
degradation, meanwhile, the main chain may be broken and the relative molecular mass of surface
of the material decreases. After exposure of 720 hours, the tensile strength decreases about 30%.
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