Thermo-mechanical properties of fused borosilicate syntactic foams

Abstract

The coefficient thermal expansion, a (CTE) of glass microballoon/vinyl ester syntactic foam was determined using dimensional changes of a temperature gradient plot. The CTE was measured and found to be up to 53-63 % lower than the vinyl ester resin matrix when mixing with different weight percentages of the glass microballoon ranging from 2 wt.% to 10 wt.% using a thermomechanical analyzer (TMA). The results of CTE showed that it has a strong relationship with the syntactic foam density (r), radius ration (h) ,cavity porosity (fg) and matrix porosity (fm). Experimental results showed that the CTE decreases when glass microballoons are added into the composites measured at different temperatures ranging from 30 oC to 70 °C. The CTE from the experimental results were also compared with Turner’s modification model for composites for its suitability for thermal expansion of syntactic foams. The results indicate that Turner’s modification model exhibits a close correlation with the reduction up to 80 % of CTE based on experiment.

Preparation and Study of Borosilicate Foam Glass with High Thermal Insulation and Mechanical Strength

“…This research has a particular frontier. Salleh et al [28,29] prepared borosilicate foam glass with a low thermal expansion coefficient by mixing and sintering borosilicate glass and hollow glass microspheres with vinyl ester resin. The study results show that the thermal expansion coefficient decreases with increasing hollow glass microsphere content at the measurement temperature from 30°C to 70°C.…”