Foam core materials for structural sandwich panels

Miscellaneous · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5385650

Huang, Jongshin

The author first investigates the creep of polymer foam cores. Models for the creep of linear and nonlinear viscoelastic polymer foams are proposed. Experimental results for the creep of a rigid polyurethane foam are compared to the mode; agreement is good. The results indicate that creep can limit the design of building panels with polymer foam cores. Next, he studies the potential of using ceramic foams as a core material in building panels. Ceramic foams have a high stiffness, high creep resistance, low cost, and are incombustible. Ceramic foams, however, have a low fracture toughness and tensile strength. Assuming that the variability of cell wall modulus of rupture follows a Weibull distribution, there is a cell size effect on both the fracture toughness and tensile strength. Both the tensile strength and fracture toughness of ceramic foams can be improved by controlling the cell size. Since cell wall deformation of cellular materials is primarily by bending, the mechanical properties of cellular materials may be improved by making cell walls into sandwich structures. Hollow-sphere composites are made by introducing thin-walled hollow spheres into a matrix.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge, MA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 5385650
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph.D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
BUILDING MATERIALS
PLASTIC FOAMS
CREEP
POLYURETHANES
FRACTURE PROPERTIES
POLYMERS
TENSILE PROPERTIES
COLLOIDS
DISPERSIONS
FOAMS
MATERIALS
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC POLYMERS
PETROCHEMICALS
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
PLASTICS
POLYAMIDES
SYNTHETIC MATERIALS
360603* - Materials- Properties
360601 - Other Materials- Preparation & Manufacture