Journal of Science and Technology of Composites

Journal of Science and Technology of Composites

Experimental investigation of ballistic properties of sandwich structures with syntactic foam core and fiber-metal laminate skins

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Mahmoud Khashei Varnamkhasti
Ehsan Ahmadi
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Lanjan Branch, Iran.
10.22068/jstc.2024.2024144.1879
Abstract
In this paper, an experimental investigation was conducted to study the ballistic properties of sandwich structures with fiber-metal laminate skins and reinforced syntactic foam core with carbon nanotubes. The syntactic foam was produced using epoxy resin and glass microballoon with volume fractions of 30%, 40%, and 55%. In addition, a series of reinforced samples was created using 40% volume fraction of microballoon and 4% multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The composite fiber-metal laminate skins on each side of the cores were made of one aluminum layer sheet and two layers of glass fiber reinforced polymer composite (GFRP). The structures were subjected to high-velocity impact tests using a gas gun and a conical head projectile. The results were analyzed to determine the effects of microballoon volume fraction and carbon nanotubes reinforced foam on the ballistic behavior of sandwich structures. The experiments showed that increasing microballoon volume fraction up to 40% decreased the projectile residual velocity and increased the ballistic limit velocity and penetration energy. Furthermore, reinforcing syntactic foam with carbon nanotubes significantly affected the ballistic properties of the structure.
Keywords
Reinforced syntactic foam
Ballistic properties
High-speed impact
Carbon nanotube
Fiber-Metal laminate skin

Subjects

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Journal of Science and Technology of Composites
Volume 11, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
Summer 2024
Pages 2458-2467