Abstract
Cork, a natural material from renewable resources, is currently attracting increasing interest in different industrial fields because of its cellular structure and the presence of the flexible suberin as its main chemical component. In an agglomerated form, it proved to be a compelling product not only as a thermal and acoustic insulator, but also as core material in sandwich structures and as a liner or padding in energy absorbing equipment. From this perspective, the assessment of its compressive response is fundamental to ensure the right out-of-plane stiffness required to a core material and the proper crashworthiness in the safety devices. Considering the complex nature of cork and the resulting peculiar compressive response, the present review article provides an overview of this paramount property, assessing the main parameters (anisotropy, temperature, strain rate, etc.) and the peculiar features (near-zero Poisson’s ratio and unique dimensional recovery) that characterize it in its natural state. Furthermore, considering its massive exploitation in the agglomerated form, the design parameters that allow its compressive behavior to be tailored and the operating parameters that can affect its crashworthiness were assessed, reporting some potential industrial applications.
Highlights
Waste generation is the result of population growth and industrial development, while waste disposal is a serious issue that pertains to all countries all over the world
Despite the pronounced differences in performance, all cork types are characterized by a common feature, namely a peculiar compressive response derived from cork’s microstructure and chemical composition, which provide them with an excellent resilience, good energy absorption capacities and, above all, an outstanding dimensional recovery
Even moisture influences cork’s compressive behavior as proved by Lagorce-Tachon et al [34], who assessed the effect of relative humidity (RH) on cork’s compressive modulus and found out an almost constant behavior up to 53% RH and a consequent decrease due to water molecules clustering, which can act as plasticizer
Summary
Waste generation is the result of population growth and industrial development, while waste disposal is a serious issue that pertains to all countries all over the world. Despite the pronounced differences in performance, all cork types are characterized by a common feature, namely a peculiar compressive response derived from cork’s microstructure and chemical composition, which provide them with an excellent resilience, good energy absorption capacities and, above all, an outstanding dimensional recovery. In light of these peculiarities, many studies assessed the compressive behavior of the different cork products evaluating the effect of numerous design and operating parameters, e.g., strain rate, temperature, anisotropy, granules dimension, binder type and amount, etc. Considering the vast state of the art concerning cork’s compressive response and its crashworthiness, the present work aims to provide a detailed and thorough review on this topic for both natural cork and agglomerated cork
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