Experimental testing on mechanical properties of sandwich structured carbon fibers reinforced composites

Abstract

The various types of structural sandwich composites panels available are based either in the method of preparation or on the basis of the core material used in between the skin material. The core material is used to increase the stiffness and strength of the entire panel and can be used according to the application or the area of use. For example the various core materials available for preparing a sandwich composite are Aluminum Honeycomb, Balsa wood, High Density Polyurethane Foam, Rohacell Foam or Nomex Core. In this work carbon fiber is a reinforcement phase with various core materials such as Aluminum Honeycomb, Rohacell and HDPU Foam and epoxy resin is used as a matrix to produce various sandwich-structured composites by Vacuum bag manufacturing process. Various tests Three point bending test, tensile and compressive tests carried out in order to validate the design. After the tests are conducted the obtained results and values are compared and graphs were plotted to compare the various Bending, Tensile and Compressive Load bearing capacity of the various sandwich panels prepared with varying core materials. Foam based sandwich panels tend to have better tensile and compressive load bearing capacity as compared to Aluminium Honeycomb due to their structure and Aluminium has better flexural properties because of its core line up which can undertake bending easily.