The energy-absorbing behaviour of foam cores reinforced with composite rods

This paper investigates the energy-absorbing characteristics of composite reinforced PVC foam cores for use in lightweight impact-resistant sandwich structures. Compressive tests have been undertaken on crosslinked PVC foam cores with densities ranging from 40 to 200 kg/m3, reinforced with carbon fibre and glass fibre rods with nominal diameters of 2, 3 and 4 mm. It has been shown that the compression strength of the reinforced foams can be optimised through the correct selection of rod arrangement and foam density. A limited number of drop-weight impact tests were also conducted on selected samples to investigate their dynamic performance. Here, it was shown that increasing the volume fraction of rods above 2.5% has little effect on the measured SEA of the two types of reinforced foam. Finally, a theoretical analysis has been undertaken to predict the peak load and the corresponding compressive displacement of the reinforced PVC foam cores.