Core sandwich material development based on vinyl ester bioresin for ship structure application

Abstract

Development of lightweight core sandwich based bioresin for ship structure application needs more attention. Bioresin from vegetable oils constitutes single, easily available, low cost, and biodegradable materials. In this research, the vinyl ester bioresin based Vinyl Ester-Coconut Oil (VE-CO) and Vinyl Esters-Soybean Oil (VE-SbO) containing 4 wt% vegetable oils are developed. The influence of vegetable oil addition in bioresin is characterized by visual observation and physical testing, including FTIR, density, hardness, and tensile test based on Lloyds Register standard. Visual testing shows that VE without vegetable oil is more transparent compared with VE with vegetable oil. The density test shows that adding vegetable oil decrease the apparent density. Vibration pattern indicates the presence of O-H, C-H, C=O, C=C, and C-O-C, which demonstrate the ability to bind, which leads to the potential formation of a polymer blend and elongation increase. Moreover, hardness decreases due to the absence of chemical bonds that occur between vinyl esters and vegetable oils. The addition of vegetable oil to vinyl ester bioresin reduces tensile strength and increases the elongation at break. So, density and tensile strength criteria meet Lloyd’s Register Standard while the other criteria are not fulfilled.