Investigation into Mechanical Properties and Failure Mechanisms of Novel Sandwich Composite Material with Carbon Fibre / Epoxy Facesheets and PVC Foam Core

Abstract

Sandwich composite materials have seen a significant increase in use across various engineering fields and applications due to their exceptional mechanical properties, including high specific strength and bending stiffness values. Because of their high strength properties, the use of sandwich structures is preferred in different industries. It is crucial to investigate material properties of novel composites in order to estimate their failure mechanisms under different loading types. In this study, a type of sandwich composite material consisting of Carbon Fibre/Epoxy Facesheets with two different dimensions and a PVC Foam Core was designed and fabricated. The selection of PVC foam for this study is motivated by its wide use in load bearing components in different industries. The sandwich composite material used for the experiments was manufactured by using vacuum-assisted resin infusion moulding process (VARIM) by IZOREEL in Izmir, Turkey. Failure styles of the structure in compression, shearing and bending were revealed by sandwich flatwise tension, core flatwise compression, and sandwich edgewise compression tests. Facesheet bending of manufactured composites have been investigated experimentally. Tensile strength of the facesheets and sandwich material have been presented separately. The detailed formulations and procedures are provided. The obtained results are discussed, and it is seen that maximum tensile and compression stresses in the three-point bending test depend on the direction of the loading with respect to different facesheet thicknesses.