Manufacture of Green-Composite Sandwich Structures with Basalt Fiber and Bioepoxy Resin

Abstract

Nowadays, there is a growing interest for the use and development of materials synthesized from renewable sources in the polymer composites manufacturing industry; this applies for both matrix and reinforcement components. In the present research, a novel basalt fibre reinforced (BFR) bioepoxy green composite is proposed as an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional petroleum-derived composites. In addition, this material system was combined with cork as core material for the fabrication of fibre composite sandwich structures. Mechanical properties of both skin and core materials were assessed through flexural and tensile tests. Finite element (FEM) simulations for the mechanical stress analysis of the sandwich material were carried out, and a maximum allowable shear stress for material failure under bending loads was established. Permeability measurements of the basalt fabrics were carried out in order to perform numerical simulations of liquid composite moulding (LCM) processes on the PAM-RTM software. The proposed green-composite sandwich material was used for the fabrication of a longboard as a case study for a sports equipment application. Numerical simulations of the mould filling stage allowed the determination of an optimal mould filling strategy. Finally, the load-bearing capacity of the board was studied by means of FEM simulations, and the presented design proved to be acceptable for service.

Theoretical Modelling Analysis on Tensile Properties of Bioepoxy/Clay Nanocomposites Using Epoxidised Soybean Oils

“…On the other hand, in order to enhance the accuracy of geometric parameters, H-T model and modified H-T model as well as modified equations with the incorporation of MRF were employed in predicting elastic moduli of bionanocomposites at the ESO content of 20 wt% by varying aspect ratios of fillers according to Equations (13) to (21) and (29), respectively. Figure 3 presented the theoretical prediction and experimental data for elastic moduli of bionanocomposites according to H-T model and modified H-T laminate model.…”

“…Several studies have investigated the effect of additional ESO to undermine mechanical properties of epoxy resins such as their tensile strengths and tensile moduli [16,17], flexural strengths and flexural moduli [17], and hardness [8] for ESO/diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) blends, glass transition temperature (T g ) and storage modulus of epoxidised canola oil (ECO)/D-GEBA blends [5], and thermal properties of epoxidised vegetable oil (EVO)/DGEBA blends [18]. To overcome those drawbacks mentioned earlier, the incorporation of rigid nanofillers such as nanoclays can enhance mechanical and thermal properties of bioepoxy resins and further extend the widespread applications of these nanocomposites [19][20][21]. High surface areas of well-dispersed and plateletlike clay nanostructures are believed to improve mechanical properties of bioepoxy nanocomposites, as evidenced by their higher tensile strengths and tensile moduli to a certain extent when compared with those of neat biopolymers [22][23][24][25].…”

Reinforcing effect of a thin basalt fiber-reinforced polymer plywood coating

“…Wood-based panels can be strengthened with aluminum sheets (Lu et al 2015). Studies on plywood reinforced with basalt fibers are scarce, but there are a few studies available on basalt fiber-reinforced timber beams (de La Rosa García et al 2013;Schober et al 2015;de La Rosa García et al 2016;Fernando et al 2016;Thorhallsson et al 2017) and BFRP cork panels (Torres et al 2013;Hoto et al 2014). In general, basalt in combination with wood is not well studied.…”

Flexural testing and analysis of full-strain-fields in sandwich composites

“…The basalt fiber reinforced polymer (BFRP) composites exhibits excellent properties such as high strength, high elastic module and corrosion resistance [2]. The manufacturing process of basalt fibers although quite similar to the glass-fiber, do not use additives resulting in a decrease in production costs and environmental impact [3] [4]. Sandwich composite structures may be subjected to several loading situations, such as impacts or large flexural loadings resulting in various failure modes including core compression failure, debonding between facing and core, deflection of interfacial crack into the core and buckling instability.…”