Flexural behaviour of fibre-reinforced syntactic foams

Syntactic foams containing 0.9, 1.76, 2.54, 3.54 and 4.5 vol.-% of E-glass fibres in the form of chopped strands were processed and subjected to three-point bending tests. The results showed that introduction of chopped strand fibress into the syntactics foam system increased the flexural strength. The values increased with the amount of fibres in the foam system except for the one containing of 3.5 vol-% of fibres, which showed a lower value than other fibre reinforced systems, thereby deviating from the trend. This exception was attributed to the difference in processing route adopted for this particular fibre-bearing foam. However, in general, the incorporation of chopped strand fibres improved the flexural behaviour of the syntactic foam system without much variation in density, thus making reinforced syntactic foams to act as better and improved core materials for sandwich applications.