Comparative study on mechanical and thermal properties of polyurethane foam and expanded polystyrene cores filled sandwich-structured GFRP composites

Abstract

Now days, the growth of composite housing in the earthquake-prone areas has increased significantly. Composite sandwich panel is the main component of the house wall. The properties of composite sandwich depend on the behavior of the two thin glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) face sheets [7] and a lightweight core as the layer components. This work focused on the fabrication and characterization of sandwich-structured glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites filled expanded polystyrene (EPS) and polyurethane (PU) foam cores. The main objectives are to analyze the effect of the different kind of cores on the panel mechanical properties, such as the flexural and compressive strength. The test results revealed that PU sandwich has flexural strain of 77.33% higher than that of the EPS-based. Thus, it was found that the performance of PU-foam sandwich panel composite shows better than that of the EPS panel.