Investigation of Mechanical Properties of Honeycomb Sandwich Structure with Kenaf/glass Hybrid Composite Facesheet

ABSTRACT

The application of a sandwich structure made with composite facesheet and honeycomb core has increased rapidly due to high stiffness to weight ratio characteristics. There is a growing interest in using natural/synthetic hybrid composite to enhance the mechanical performance of natural fiber and reduce the environmental impact compared to synthetic materials. This study investigates the mechanical properties (tensile, edgewise compression, flexural) of the honeycomb sandwich structure with the hybrid composite facesheet, reinforced with different kenaf and glass fiber ratios. Non-hybrid kenaf and glass fiber composites were fabricated for comparison. The result showed that increasing the glass fiber ratio in a hybrid facesheet significantly improved the mechanical performance of the sandwich structure. Compared to the non-hybrid kenaf composite, the hybrid composite showed improved tensile and compression strength by up to 233% and 79%, respectively. The hybrid composite (glass/kenaf/glass) achieved 76% tensile modulus and 87% compression strength of glass fiber composite when the results were normalized. The specific flexural stiffness of the hybrid facesheet using glass fiber in the outer layer exhibited comparable performance by obtaining 89% flexural stiffness of non-hybrid glass composite sandwich structure.

摘要

由复合材料面板和蜂窝芯制成的夹层结构由于具有高刚度重量比的特点，其应用迅速增加. 与合成材料相比，利用天然/合成混杂复合材料来提高天然纤维的力学性能，减少对环境的影响越来越受到人们的关注. 研究了不同红麻纤维和玻璃纤维配比的混杂复合材料蜂窝夹层结构的力学性能（拉伸、边压、弯曲）. 制备了非混杂红麻和玻璃纤维复合材料进行比较. 结果表明，提高混杂面板中玻璃纤维的比例可以显著改善夹层结构的力学性能. 与未混杂的红麻复合材料相比，混杂复合材料的拉伸和压缩强度分别提高了233%和79%. 结果表明，玻璃/红麻/玻璃混杂复合材料的拉伸模量和压缩强度分别为玻璃纤维复合材料的76%和87%. 通过获得88%的非混杂玻璃夹层结构抗弯刚度，在外层使用玻璃纤维的混杂面板的比抗弯刚度表现出相当的性能.

KEYWORDS:

• Kenaf
• glass
• hybrid composite
• honeycomb core
• sandwich structure
• mechanical testing

关键词:

• 关键词:红麻
• 玻璃
• 混杂复合材料
• 蜂窝芯
• 夹层结构
• 机械试验

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank and sincere appreciation to the Aerospace Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and Department of Aerospace, Universiti Putra Malaysia, for providing the lab facility to conduct this study.

Additional information

Funding

The Universiti Putra Malaysia funded this research work under IPS [9633700].