Materials Today: Proceedings 62 (2022) 624–628

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Effect of fiber orientation on mechanical behavior of glass fiber

reinforced polyethylene terephthalate foam sandwich composite
Ganesh Radhakrishnan a, Saravanan Mathialagan b,⇑
a
Mechanical & Industrial Section, University of Technology & Applied Sciences, Nizwa, 611, Sultanate of Oman
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Velammal Engineering College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600 066, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, a polymer based sandwich composite reinforced with unidirectional glass fiber and poly-
Available online 7 April 2022 ethylene terephthalate (PET) foam core was fabricated through hand lay-up technique and characterized
for its mechanical behavior through tension, compression and fatigue tests. The main objective of the
Keywords: investigation is to prove that the fiber orientation in the foam composite affects the mechanical behavior
Fiber orientation of the composite significantly. The sandwich composite panel was fabricated for three different orienta-
Foam sandwich composite tions of unidirectional glass fiber such as 0° / +90° / PET foam / 90° / 0°, 0° / +45° / PET foam / 45° / 0°
Mechanical behavior
and 0° / +30° / PET foam/ 30° / 0°. The analysis of mechanical behavior for the composite revealed the
Polyethylene terephthalate
Glass fiber
fact that the maximum flexural strength and tensile strength was observed for 30° fiber orientation and
the maximum compression strength was observed for 90° fiber orientatione in the composite. It was
therefore, noticed that the orientation of the unidirectional glass fiber in the composite affected the
mechanical behavior of the composite to a significant level. The inter locking strength between the
matrix and reinforcement in the composite, which was due to presence of PET foam in the middle layer
and fiber orientation influences the mechanical strength of the composite appreciably.
Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Second International
Conference on Engineering Materials, Metallurgy and Manufacturing.

1. Introduction main text condition is in a brittle manner due to shear failure of the core or
compressive failure of the skin followed by de-bonding between
A sandwich composite is a special category of composite which the skin and the core [4]. The core material selection is very impor-
is developed by means of attaching two thin and very stiff skins to tant than that of core material thickness as core materials like PMI
a lightweight with a thick and lightweight core. The material pre- (polymethyl-methacrylate) leads to sudden increase in cost, but
ferred for core is usually a low strength material, but the thickness does not provide significant improvement of the mechanical prop-
provides the composite the required high flexural stiffness with erties; thus in most of cases use of such core materials is not rea-
overall low density [1]. Sandwich composites can be fabricated sonable [5]. This study represents the experimental analysis on
by different methods such as hand layup method, vacuum infusion mechanical behavior of sandwich composite primarily designed
method, spray layup technique, pultrusion, resin transfer molding. for lightweight material application. The sandwich core material
However, vacuum infusion is the most effective method for manu- is PET foam which is embedded in an epoxy matrix, whereas the
facturing sandwich composite [2]. It is observed that the core sandwich skins are glass fiber and epoxy. The risk of delamination
material influences the mechanical properties of sandwich panel damage is reduced by the way that the interior layers of the skins
and the compression strength can be increased by increasing the are interconnected to each other by glass fiber, which crosses the
core thickness as the sandwich panel thickness increases [3]. Man- foam core. The presence of gas between the layers of sandwich
alo et al proposed that with respect to flexural loading, the com- can cause considerable effects in the mechanical properties of
posite beams in the edgewise condition failed due to progressive sandwich composite [6]. So it can be removed by various tech-
failure of the skin, whereas on the other side, failure in the flatwise niques such as compaction or using rollers. The epoxy, when poly-
merized, it will become amorphous and a highly cross-linked
⇑ Corresponding author. material. This structural behaviour of the epoxy polymers results
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Mathialagan). in specific desirable properties such as high modulus and strength,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2022.03.623
2214-7853/Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Second International Conference on Engineering Materials, Metallurgy and Manufacturing.
G. Radhakrishnan and S. Mathialagan Materials Today: Proceedings 62 (2022) 624–628

low creep rate, etc. However, it also leads to an undesirable prop- Table 2
erty mainly that the epoxy polymer becomes relatively brittle and Technical Data of Glass-fiber.

thereby resulted in poor resistance to crack initiation and growth, Properties Values
that affects the overall performance of composites. Then it is nec- Cloth Thickness 0.2 mm (±0.05 mm)
essary to ensure that adequate amount of epoxy is distributed in Cloth Weight 400 g/m2
the layers of sandwich composite. This paper analyses the mechan- Temperature Resistance 550 °C
ical properties such as ultimate tensile strength, compression Density 2.6 gm/cc
Hardness 6000 MPa
strength and flexural strength of various orientations of unidirec- Tensile strength 2050 MPa
tional glass fiber over the PET foam.
The core material (foam) seems to be influencing more on the
compressive and bending properties of the sandwich composite.
presence of catalysts, or with many co-reactants like amines, phe-
Vacuum infusion method shows better mechanical properties, as
nols, thiols, etc. Epoxy resins are cured by adding a curing agent,
it eliminates gases and voids compared to other methods. By
commonly called a hardener. The technical data of epoxy resin
increasing the core material thickness better properties of the
and mixing ratios used in the processing of composite panel are
sandwich composite can be achieved. Orientation of the unidirec-
mentioned in Table 3 and 4 respectively. In order to identify the
tional glass fibers shows a slight change in the properties of the
best design, the sandwich structures are laminated by hand lay-
sandwich composite. Comparing all the fabrication methods, hand
up technique at three different orientations of unidirectional glass
layup method is the most feasible and simple method to fabricate
fiber [9]. The specimen consists of four layers of unidirectional
the sandwich composite. In order to get better finishing of the
glass fabric, which is of 50  50 cm dimensions.
sandwich composite, gel coat is applied in the mold. Selection of
core material affects the mechanical properties of the sandwich
panel than core layer thickness. 2.2. Experiment samples
This work describes the results of experimental investigation on
mechanical behavior of glass fiber reinforced polyethylene tereph- Sample 1: Two layers of fabric placed at an angle 0° and + 30°
thalate foam sandwich composite subjected to a detail analysis of wetted by epoxy resin to obtain the lower face sheet and then
effect of fiber orientation on the mechanical behavior of composite. polyethylene terephthalate foam core of dimension 50  40 cm
This was considered as specific contribution in this paper among was placed on the lower face sheet, the upper face sheet was lam-
foam sandwich composites. inated with two layers of fabric wetted by epoxy placed at an angle
30° and 0° on the core.
Sample 2: Two layers of fabric placed at an angle 0° and + 45°
2. Experimentation wetted by epoxy resin to obtain the lower face sheet and then
polyethylene terephthalate foam core of dimension 50  40 cm
2.1. Materials was placed on the lower face sheet, the upper face sheet was lam-
inated with two layers of fabric wetted by epoxy placed at an angle
The sandwich composite was fabricated by hand layup method 45° and 0° on the core.
[7]. It consists of unidirectional glass fiber of 400 gsm as skin mate- Sample 3: Two layers of fabric placed at an angle 0° and + 90°
rial (supplier: Vruksha Composites, Andhra Pradesh) and polyethy- wetted by epoxy resin to obtain the lower face sheet and then
lene terephthalate foam of 10 mm thickness as core material polyethylene terephthalate foam core of dimension 50  40 cm
(supplier: Armacell India Pvt. Ltd, Pune) and epoxy is used as a was placed on the lower face sheet, the upper face sheet was lam-
resin (supplier: S.M Composites, Chennai). The selection of the core inated with two layers of fabric wetted by epoxy placed at an angle
material has significant improvement of the mechanical properties 90° and 0° on the core.
[5]. The fabricated composite was tested for its mechanical proper-
ties [8]. 2.3. Fabrication and testing
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a type of thermoplastic
polymer. Polyester resins have excellent combination of properties The development of the composite was made in a glass mold,
such as mechanical, thermal, chemical and dimensional stability. coated with wax, which acts as a releasing agent. Once the lamina-
The technical data for PET foam is listed in Table 1. The mechanical tion was completed, curing of the composite was done at room
properties of glass fibers are competent enough to match with that temperature for about 24 h. The tensile test of the composite spec-
of other fibers such as polymers and carbon fiber. Glass fibers are imen was carried out as per ASTM standard D3039M 14 as
used as a reinforcement for many polymer composites in order shown in the Fig. 1a. The tensile properties of sandwich composite
to result in a very strong and relatively lightweight fiber reinforced reinforced with polyethylene terephthalate foam core and unidi-
polymer (FRP) composite material called glass-reinforced plastic rectional glass-fiber was determined at ambient temperature.
(GRP). The technical data of glass-fiber used for composite was The tensile tests tests were conducted on specimens of 13 mm
listed in Table 2. Epoxy resins react either with themselves in the thickness and gauge length of 25 mm using Universal Testing
Machine. The compression test of the composite specimen was car-
ried out as per ASTM standard D3410 16 as shown in the Fig. 1b.
Table 1
Technical Data of PET foam.
The compression tests were performed using Universal Testing
Machine (UTM-100-ton capacity) at ambient conditions. The
Properties Values
Mass density 70 Kg/m3
Compression Strength 0.8 MPa Table 3
Compression Modulus 30 MPa Technical Data of Epoxy Resin.
Tensile Strength 1.6 MPa
Properties LY556 HY951
Tensile Modulus 60 MPa
Shear Strength 0.55 MPa Viscosity (25 °C) (MPaS) 10000–12000 10–20
Shear Modulus 14 MPa Density (25 °C) (gm/cc) 1.15–1.20 0.97–0.99
Thermal Conductivity 0.034 W/mk Flash Point >200 °C >180 °C

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G. Radhakrishnan and S. Mathialagan Materials Today: Proceedings 62 (2022) 624–628

Table 4 45°, after which there was a slight increase in tensile strength for
Processing Mixing Ratio. 90° fiber orientation. The maximum tensile strength of the com-
Epoxy Resin Mixing Ratio posite was about 38 MPa for 30° fiber orientation. This may be
LY556 100 g attributed to the fact that, lesser the variation in fiber orientation,
HY951 10–12 g the change in contribution over tensile strength of the composite
will be less [16,17]. When the fiber orientation changes from 45°
to 90°, the tensile strength offered by unidirectional fibers across
dimensions of the specimen used for compression test are 13 mm bi-direction was high which further lead to maximum tensile
thickness and 25 mm length. The flexural test of composite was strength of about 35.666 MPa. From Fig. 3a-b, the compression
carried out as per ASTM standard D4762 18 as shown in the strength of composite increases gradually from 45° to 90° fiber ori-
Fig. 1c. For Flexural testing, three-point bending is done on the entation. The maximum compressive strength of 14.667 MPa was
sandwich composite by using Universal Testing Machine (UTM observed for 90° foam composite. The inter-locking strength
100-ton capacity) at ambient conditions [10]. The dimensions against compression between fiber and matrix seems to increase
of the specimens are 13 mm thickness and 25 mm length. The span with respect to orientation of fiber [13]. This may also be due to
length was taken as 80 mm. appreciable compressive strength of PET foam core [14]. The com-
pression strength of the composite was majorly contributed by the
compression strength of PET foam core and this plays a vital role in
3. Results and discussions
distribution of strength isotropically on the entire composite. Com-
pared to 30° fiber orientation, 90° fiber orientation had balanced
The observations obtained through the mechanical behavior
fiber and matrix strength in order to contribute to the strength
testing of foam composite panel is shown in Table 5.
of the composite. The fact attributed behind the maximum com-
The tensile behavior of the composite and the effect of fiber ori-
pression strength at 90° orientations was due to this. [15,17] The
entation on tensile strength of the composite was shown in Fig. 2
flexural behaviour of the sandwich composite as shown in Fig. 4-
a-b. From the figure, it was observed that there was a steep fall
a-b decreases with increase in orientation of unidirectional glass
in tensile strength for increase in fiber orientation from 30° to

Fig. 1. Photograph of test set up for (a) tensile strength (b) compressive strength (c) fatigue strength.

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G. Radhakrishnan and S. Mathialagan Materials Today: Proceedings 62 (2022) 624–628

Table 5
Mechanical Properties of Sandwich Composite.

Sample Trial Compression Strength (N/ Compression Stiffness (N/ Flexural Strength (N/ Flexural Tensile Tensile
mm2) mm) mm2) Stiffness (N/ Strength (N/ Stiffness (N/
mm) mm2) mm)
0° / +30° /FOAM/ 30° 1 10 4 11 0.18 39 1.25
/ 0° 2 12 4.54 10 0.16 37 1.25
3 16 4 9 0.14 32 1.24
0° / +45° /FOAM/ 45° 1 9 4 9 0.13 31 0.92
/ 0° 2 13 3.33 10 0.13 32 1.2
3 10 4 10 0.13 31 1.4
0° / +90° /FOAM/ 90° 1 16 3.33 10 0.26 36 0.6
/ 0° 2 14 3.33 11 0.28 35 0.7
3 14 4.54 7 0.27 36 0.8

Fig. 2. (a) Tensile behavior of composite(b) Effect of fiber orientation on tensile strength and stiffness.

Fig. 3. (a) Compression behavior of composite (b) Effect of fiber orientation on compression strength and stiffness.

fiber from 30° to 90°. The maximum flexural strength was obtained decrease with increase in orientation with respect to reference
in 30° fibers oriented composite and drastically drops with plane. This effect was reflected on reduction in flexural strength.
increase in fiber orientation and reaches minimum flexural The stiffness of the composite under tension, compression and
strength in 90° orientations. The shift in tensile-compression fatigue as shown in Fig. 2-b,3-b and 4-b indicates the resistance
behavior of composite across cross section was influenced in larger offered by the composite against deformation in particular type
extent when the orientation is not distributing the fiber strength of loading.
equally in both the sides of the fibers in the composite, thereby
induces the span of tensile-compression shift and flexural strength
accordingly. The top surface fibers of composite were subjected to 4. Conclusion
compressive stress whereas the bottom surface fibers of composite
are subjected to tensile stress [11]. The core foam in the composite The sandwich composite was developed successfully using
was subjected to shear under flexural testing [12]. The shear crack Hand layup method and the mechanical properties were studied.
across the foam extended from top to bottom surface of about 45°. The maximum flexural strength and tensile strength was observed
The inter-locking strength between the fiber and the matrix for 30° fiber orientation foam composite. The maximum compres-
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G. Radhakrishnan and S. Mathialagan Materials Today: Proceedings 62 (2022) 624–628

Fig. 4. (a) Fatigue behavior of composite. (b) Effect of fiber orientation on fatigue strength and stiffness.

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