Fabrication and mechanical characterisation of composite sandwich structure having kevlar honeycomb core

ABSTRACT

Composite sandwich structures are predominantly used in aerospace, civil engineering works, and automotive industries for load-bearing and lightweight structures. Recently, the core structures have been getting modified, due to the lack of strength, stiffness, and weight ratio. Very few past researches have shown research data on testing and mechanical properties of sandwich structures with commercial Kevlar honeycomb as a core. To overcome the above-said issues, an innovative composite sandwich structure is designed with carbon fibre resin-based sheets and a Kevlar honeycomb core. Carbon fibre face sheets with a thickness of 0.8 mm also an Aerospace Grade Kevlar honeycomb core with a cell size of 3.2 mm, a density of 48 kg/mm³ and a height of 12.7 mm are used to build the proposed sandwich structure. The fabricated sandwich plate was then subjected to various tests by American Standards for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards to determine the various mechanical properties, such as stiffness, pressure, and stresses. Also, water absorption and soil degradation experiments were conducted on a sandwich plate to describe the additional properties of this sandwich structure. As a result, the specimen produced by the proposed method has low weight with high load withstanding capability as the shear is restricted with the help of carbon fibre also it has low deflection at critical load and high strength.

KEYWORDS:

• Kevlar honeycomb core
• composite sandwich structure
• three-point bending test
• shear rigidity
• water absorption test
• soil degradability test

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.