Mechanical behavior of a syntactic foam/glass fibre composite sandwich: experimental results and numerical simulations

This note outlines the results of a fairly comprehensive investigation recently carried out at Politecnico di Milano on the mechanical properties of a composite sandwich designed primarily for naval engineering applications. The skins of the sandwich are made of glass fibre/polymer matrix composites; their interior layers are connected with piles crossing the core. The core consists of a syntactic foam composed by hollow glass microspheres embedded in an epoxy matrix. Experimental tests and numerical FE simulations on both the sandwich composite and its components have been performed in order to characterize the complex mechanical behaviour of such highly heterogeneous material.