Nanoclay Based Grid Stiffened Syntactic Foam Composites Available to Purchase

In this research work, a novel nanoparticle based syntactic foam was employed to form a grid structure with conventional syntactic foams filled in the bay area. Initially, a big slab of the syntactic foam was fabricated and later on cut into squares. These squares were properly arranged in a mold to have an orthogrid arrangement with empty channels between them. These channels were in turn filled with nanoparticle incorporated syntactic foams and cured. Care was taken to properly orient the squares to attain the desired orthogrid geometry. K46 and S22 type of microballoons with volume fractions of 30% and 60% respectively were used in this study. The volume fraction of nanoclay used in the syntactic foams poured within the channels was 1%. Low velocity impact and flexural tests were conducted on these novel nanoparticle based grid syntactic foams. From the low velocity impact results, it is clear that the nanoclay based grid stiffened syntactic foam with S22 type microballoons in the bay area and K46 type microballoons in the grid channels performed well in terms of the load bearing capacity, elastic energy absorption and damage suppression characteristics. On the other hand, under flexural testing, it was clear that the strain at break values for the S2260K4660-1 configuration was close to that of the K4660S2230–1 configuration.