Mechanical properties of sandwich composite made of syntactic foam core and GFRP skins

Zulzamri Salleh; Md Mainul Islam; Jayantha Ananda Epaarachchi; Haibin Su; Zulzamri Salleh; Md Mainul Islam; Jayantha Ananda Epaarachchi; Haibin Su

doi:10.3934/matersci.2016.4.1704

AIMS Materials Science

2016, Volume 3, Issue 4: 1704-1727. doi: 10.3934/matersci.2016.4.1704

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Mechanical properties of sandwich composite made of syntactic foam core and GFRP skins

1.
Centre for Future Materials (CFM) and School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland 4350, Australia
2.
University Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Marine Engineering Technology, 32200, Lumut, Perak, Malaysia
3.
Division of Materials Science, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798

Received: 05 September 2016 Accepted: 28 November 2016 Published: 01 December 2016

Sandwich composites or sandwich panels have been widely used as potential materials or building structures and are regarded as a lightweight material for marine applications. In particular, the mechanical properties, such as the compressive, tensile and flexural behaviour, of sandwich composites formed from glass fibre sheets used as the skin and glass microballoon/vinyl ester as the syntactic foam core were investigated in this report. This syntactic foam core is sandwiched between unidirectional glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) using vinyl ester resins to build high performance sandwich panels. The results show that the compressive and tensile strengths decrease when the glass microballoon content is increased in syntactic foam core of sandwich panels. Moreover, compressive modulus is also found to be decreased, and there is no trend for tensile modulus. Meanwhile, the flexural stiffness and effective flexural stiffness for edgewise position have a higher bending as 50% and 60%, respectively. Furthermore, the results indicated that the glass microballoon mixed in a vinyl ester should be controlled to obtain a good combination of the tensile, compressive and flexural strength properties.
- syntactic foam,
- composite sandwich panel,
- glass microballoon,
- resin,
- tensile,
- flexural
Citation: Zulzamri Salleh, Md Mainul Islam, Jayantha Ananda Epaarachchi, Haibin Su. Mechanical properties of sandwich composite made of syntactic foam core and GFRP skins[J]. AIMS Materials Science, 2016, 3(4): 1704-1727. doi: 10.3934/matersci.2016.4.1704

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Abstract

Sandwich composites or sandwich panels have been widely used as potential materials or building structures and are regarded as a lightweight material for marine applications. In particular, the mechanical properties, such as the compressive, tensile and flexural behaviour, of sandwich composites formed from glass fibre sheets used as the skin and glass microballoon/vinyl ester as the syntactic foam core were investigated in this report. This syntactic foam core is sandwiched between unidirectional glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) using vinyl ester resins to build high performance sandwich panels. The results show that the compressive and tensile strengths decrease when the glass microballoon content is increased in syntactic foam core of sandwich panels. Moreover, compressive modulus is also found to be decreased, and there is no trend for tensile modulus. Meanwhile, the flexural stiffness and effective flexural stiffness for edgewise position have a higher bending as 50% and 60%, respectively. Furthermore, the results indicated that the glass microballoon mixed in a vinyl ester should be controlled to obtain a good combination of the tensile, compressive and flexural strength properties.

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