Preparation and Mechanical Properties of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Multiphase Epoxy Syntactic Foam (CF-R-Epoxy/HGMS/CFR-HEMS Foam).

Abstract

Short carbon fiber (CF), epoxy-hardener (EP-hardener), and expanded polystyrene (EPS) beads were used to prepare CF-reinforced hollow epoxy macrospheres (CFR-HEMS) by the “rolling ball method”. The multiphase epoxy syntactic foam (ESF) was prepared with CFR-HEMS, the EP-hardener system, and hollow glass microspheres (HGMS) by the “compression modeling method”. In this experiment, the influences of the stacking volume fraction, wall thickness, and inner diameter of the CFR-HEMS and HGMS types and contents in the EP-hardener system on the properties of the ESF were studied. In addition, CFs with different meshes were used to reinforce hollow epoxy macrospheres (HEMS) to study the effect of different kinds of CFs on the compressive strength of the ESF. During the mixing of the EP-hardener and HGMS (EP-hardener–HGMS), 300 AW CFs with different contents were added to the system to enhance the compressive strength of the ESF. The CFR-HEMS spherical wall was combined tightly with the EP-hardener–HGMS system by a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The ESF, which has better properties relatively in the experiment, can be used in 2673 m deep water and provide 490 kg/m3 buoyancy, which can be of help in the preparation of buoyancy materials in detection systems and oil extraction systems in the deep sea.