Impact behavior of natural rubber based syntactic foam core sandwich structures

Abstract

In this study, the impact behavior of sandwich panels of natural rubberbased syntactic foam cores with aluminum face sheets was investigated experimentally and with the help of finite element analysis (FEA). Syntactic foam cores were produced byadding glass bubbles (GB) to the natural rubber (NR). Natural rubber was dissolved at room temperature with chemical solvents mixed with glass bubbles at 10, 20, and 30 weight percentages. Very low density (similar to 0.8 g x cm(-3)) and high compressible foams were obtained depending on the GB weight percentages. Aluminum face sheets and the NR/GB syntactic foam core developed were joined by adhesive bonding to produce sandwich beam specimens. The sandwich beams manufactured in this way were subjected to impact loading under three-point bending boundary conditions experimentally. The experimental results were compared with finite element simulation results under the same loading and boundary conditions. The damage mechanism of the sandwich panels devised were analyzed. According to the results, natural rubber containing an additive of 20 wt.-% GBs showed better impact resistance than the others.