Abstract
Sandwich composites have been considerably used in the aerospace and marine industry for their lightweight and excellent structural, energy absorption and impact resistance properties. Additionally, recent advancements in nano-reinforced materials have allowed enhancement and tailoring of the mechanical and impact properties of resulting composites. In this work, sandwich composites comprising of glass-fiber face sheets and PVC foam were manufactured using vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) process. Nano-graphene platelets were strategically placed in the external layers of the face sheets. The resulting sandwich structures were subjected to varying impact loads and their behavior was compared with pristine samples. Dye-penetration tests were performed to study the extent of damage. Graphene-embedded specimens showed significantly less damage than pristine samples impacted to similar energy level. Overall, results show great promise in tailoring the impact behavior of sandwich composites through strategic placement of graphene nano-reinforcements.
| Original language | British English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 2435-2440 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| State | Published - 2013 |
| Event | 19th International Conference on Composite Materials, ICCM 2013 - Montreal, Canada Duration: 28 Jul 2013 → 2 Aug 2013 |
Conference
| Conference | 19th International Conference on Composite Materials, ICCM 2013 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Canada |
| City | Montreal |
| Period | 28/07/13 → 2/08/13 |
Keywords
- Graphene
- Impact
- Sandwich composites
- VARTM
