Mechanical Properties Of Sandwich Composites Used For Aerofoil Shell Structures Of Wind Turbine Blade

Abstract

The grid-scored foams contribute significantly to the overall mechanical properties of the sandwich structures, such as aerofoil shell structure of wind turbine blades which are subjected to different loads under operating conditions. The goal of the present paper is to examine the four-point bending, flatwise and edgewise compression and in-plane shear behaviour of sandwich panels composed of composite face sheets of E-glass/ bisphenol-A epoxy resin and plain and grid-scored PVC foams. The four-point bending failure load of the grid-scored foamed sandwich beams increased by 28.1% compared to the plain foamed ones. The flatwise compression strength of samples with grid-scored foam increased by 546% compared to plain foamed samples. The resin grids contributed to an increase in the flat-wise compression stress inducing the core crushing. Under the edgewise compression load, using the grid-scored foam increased the maximum load values by only about 2.9% relative to the plain foam. The reason for this small difference can be addressed as the facings are more effective in carrying the edgewise loadings. With the use of the grid-scored foam, an increase of 38.2% was obtained in-plane shear strength compared to plain foamed sandwich beams. The resin grids improved bonding between the facings and PVC foam.