Development and characterisation of expanded polystyrene spheres embedded aluminium epoxy sandwich composites

Abstract

newline The low density is one of the most essential properties of the packaging materials It decreases the manufacturing and transportation costs This thesis addresses the development of the low density expanded polystyrene embedded aluminium skinned epoxy sandwich composites for packaging applications Buoyancy investigations and mechanical characterisations were also made on the developed sandwich composites Efficient way of increasing the strength to weight ratio of the packaging material with geometrically efficient structures such as the sandwich concept Metal skinned polymer sandwich composites mainly have two components namely skin and core Skin is the outer side of the matrix core The materials used for the sandwich composite skins are aluminium alloy1050A sheet with a thickness of 0 2 mm and the polymer matrix core consists of epoxy resin and expanded polystyrene spheres of 7 5 mm diameter Integral bonding between skins and core prevents the interfacial failure under the applied load enhancing the flexural properties of sandwich composites The properties of sandwich composites depend upon properties of the core and skins their relative thickness and the bonding characteristics between them For reducing the weight of the sandwich composite and to take over the control on the density of the sandwich composite The low density Expanded Polystyrene Spheres EPS were used in various volume percentage in the sandwich composites EPS was placed in the sandwich composites cores in two different patterns of arrangements They are placed in a square and hexagonal pattern inside the sandwich composites core Square pattern of arrangements has two rows of expanded polystyrene spheres and hexagonal pattern has three rows of expanded polystyrene spheres newline newline