Journal of Advanced Materials in Engineering

Journal of Advanced Materials in Engineering

Preparation and Evaluation of Microstructure, Compressive and Tensile Strength of Vinyl Ester/Glass Micro Balloon Foams

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
M.R. Loghman
M. Najafpour
A.R. Nasr Esfahani
H. Sheikh
M. Sadeghi
E. Mohammad Sharifi
Department of Materials Engineering, Malek AShtar University of Technology, Iran
10.47176/jame.43.1.1051
Abstract
Syntactic foams consisting of vinyl ester resin hollow glass microspheres (microballoons) are used in many marine or air structures due to their low density, high stiffness/density ratio, and ability to absorb energy. In this research, pure vinyl ester resin with three different volume percentages of 20%, 40%, and 60% of glass microballoons was produced by molding and casting method. The effect of the percentage of microballoons on the density, compressive, and tensile properties of foams was evaluated. The density measurement of the foams showed that with the increase in the percentage of glass microballoons, from 0% to 60% by volume, the density decreased from 1.04 g/cm3 to 0.563 g/cm3. The results showed that with the increase in the percentage of microballoons, the compressive and tensile strength of the foams decrease, but the specific compressive strength (compressive strength to density ratio) of foams increases. The highest tensile strength is related to the vinyl ester resin without microballoons with a tensile strength of 40 MPa. The specific compressive strength of foams increased from 76 MPa.cm3/g to 98 MPa.cm3/g by increasing the percentage of glass microballoon from 0% to 60%.
Keywords
Syntactic foam
Vinyl ester resin
Glass microballoons
Compressive properties
Tensile properties
Subjects
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Journal of Advanced Materials in Engineering
Volume 43, Issue 1
2024
Pages 41-53

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