Flexural properties of epoxy syntactic foams reinforced by fiberglass mesh and/or short glass fiber

Epoxy syntactic foams containing 15 wt.% hollow glass microballoon were reinforced by fiberglass mesh and/or short glass fiber, and the flexural behavior of these foams were investigated. Flexural tests results showed that the presence of glass fiber or fiberglass mesh led to increased values of strength and modulus in syntactic foams compared with unreinforced syntactic foams. And fiberglass mesh was found to be much more efficient. By adding two-layer fiberglass mesh to the glass fiber reinforced syntactic foams, the flexural strength and modulus further increased almost 2.5 and 2 times, respectively, while the density of the reinforced foam only increased by 9.3%. In addition, it was found that the position and layers of fiberglass mesh had significant influence of the flexural properties. The failure modes and mechanisms of different reinforced syntactic foams are examined and the underlying differences are discussed.