The primary purposes of a core in a sandwich composite are to keep the face sheets separated by a fixed distance and to transmit shear stresses. Syntactic foam cores consisting of hollow glass microspheres and resin can form strong, lightweight cores. By underfilling the interstitial space in a packed microsphere bed with a binder, a three-phase syntactic foam is created that has a percolated void network. In a sealed sandwich composite, a void network allows for the entire core of the sandwich composite to be evacuated and mechanically compressed by the exterior pressure. By combining this compression with a heating cycle, it is possible to repair core cracking and core/face sheet interface debonding when a reversible binder is used. Upon cooling, the healed sandwich restores its properties. We examine the relation between the mechanical properties of these sandwich composites and the healing methodologies.

Volume Subject Area:
Multifunctional Materials
Topics:
Composite materials, Binders (Materials), Compression, Cooling, Cracking (Materials), Cycles, Fracture (Process), Glass, Heating, Maintenance, Mechanical properties, Pressure, Resins, Shear stress
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