Mechanical Variations of Composite Snowboard Sandwich Cores

Kenza Coubrough, Garrett Purvis, Gavin Ames, Sam Rzhiskiy, Annie Wu, Luocheng Huang

Introduction and Objective

Our objective was to analyze the mechanical properties of snowboards in order to understand and
evaluate material qualities essential to improving board safety and recreational enjoyment.
Experimentation with varied sandwich composite constructions has culminated in a material
recommendation for a composite snowboard with optimal mechanical integrity.

Background
Our original proposal consisted of a multi-part objective: evaluate the effects of different core
materials and epoxies on mechanical properties of sandwich construction; then build a snowboard
prototype based off of this information. While we decided our original goal was a bit ambitious, our
original objective guided the final outcome of our project. Our new objective was to make a material
recommendation for a composite snowboard with optimal mechanical integrity based off of mechanical
test analysis of composite sandwich coupons. We aimed to keep in mind the overarching industry goals --
improving safety, reliability and performance of materials -- even if we would not be able to impact them.
We started to understand how limited our knowledge of composites really was once the project got
underway, but this project proved to be an invaluable hands-on learning experience that taught us about
sandwich composites by using basic materials science characterization to understand snowboard
construction.
Because building the snowboard model was the only major part that was cut from our original
goals, our strategy for completing all other project steps remained largely the same. First, we assessed the
mechanical properties of an existing snowboard with an Instron three-point bend test. We studied how the
board was structured, what materials were used, how it fractured and delaminated, and how we thought
the materials used created these results. Next, we constructed our own sandwich composite coupons using
different core materials with the following dimensions: 30cm x 5cm according to ASTM F Standard
D7250/D7250M. Our original plan was to use poplar wood, PVC foam and aluminum honeycomb as core
materials, which we executed in our final plan. These materials were chosen as they are often used in the
snowboard industry2, 3. The aluminum honeycomb is as of yet not generally used in snowboards, but does
see use in high tech, weight constricted applications such as aerospace construction. We wanted to see if
this material could also be used for snowboards using the same characterization methods used for the
other core materials. (see Figure 1 and Table 1).

Figure 1. Sandwich composite coupons with foam, poplar, maple, and Al honeycomb cores

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 We were going to test two different epoxies with these various constructions as well. In our final
project, we decided to add maple wood as a core material due to its prominence in snowboard
construction. In addition, we made a slight alteration to comparing coupons made using a high-
temperature epoxy versus using fiberglass prepreg cloth. This change was made due to the high cost of
high-quality epoxy and the availability of free prepreg material from the UW ME department. It should be
noted that a foam and prepreg sandwich combination was not made due to the low thermal decomposition
temperature of the PVC foam and the high curing temperature of the prepreg (see table below).

We aimed to analyze how these different core materials compared to each other through coupon
characterization and design-driven testing. Originally, we planned to use Instron three-point bend test,
along with bending stiffness and ultimate failure calculations as outlined in ASTM F Standard 780-93a.
We planned to use TGA, TMA and DSC analysis to compare the thermal properties of the epoxies,
including curing. The double beam cantilever test and overlap shear test were also planned in order to
compare strength of the adhesive epoxies in our construction.
We revised the characterization methods we used because due to design-driven factors and
availability. Instron three-point bend tests were carried out on all material coupons, including the actual
snowboard, according to ASTM F Standard D7250/D7250M. Stored energy, flexural yield strength and
modulus were calculated for each coupon because the performance of a snowboard is largely determined
by these quantities. Charpy impact test was also factored into our final plans. Charpy is not commonly

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used to test composite materials, but it was added as a design-driven test. We tested coupons at different
temperatures to simulate the performance in a winter environment.

Revised objectives and experimental procedures

Coupon Construction
The first step in completing the project was to create the different composite coupons to be
evaluated with the use of an instron. This involved two different types of layup per sandwich composite
core. The two types of layups were a wet layup and a layup using fiberglass prepreg. For the fiberglass
layup the four layers were used on each side of the coupon at 45 - 45 degree angles to each other. Four
different cores were used, therefore that would amount to eight different layups, however the PVC foam
used as one of the four cores decomposes at the temperature used to cure the prepreg. For this reason,
seven total layups were made and coupons were cut from these layups to be evaluated. The responsibility
of this task was spread evenly to the entire group, however Kenza and Garrett completed the majority of
this task preparing the sandwich composites for evaluation on the instron.

TGA / DSC
In order to determine the correct curing temperature and time for the unknown prepreg polymer
the material had to be run initially through TGA analysis to determine its decomposition temperature. The
purpose of this step was in preparation for DSC which would tell us the curing temperature. The
experimental procedure for TGA and DSC was quite simple and was able to be done by our group during
regular lab. The procedure for TGA consisted of cutting a small, approximately 10 mg sample of the
prepreg, making certain the TGA machine was zeroed and the pan used was made certain to be clean. The
sample chamber was purged with nitrogen gas to create an inert environment. After covering the bottom
of the pan with the sample a ramp rate of 5.0 degrees C per minute was set to a maximum temperature of
600 C. The data then showed that the decomposition temperature was approximately 378.52 Celsius.
Knowing the decomposition temperature we could then run DSC on the sample to determine the
curing temperature. The procedure for this was very similar to the TGA in that approximately the same
size sample was prepared, nitrogen purge gas was used, etc. With DSC though it was important not to
reach the 378 degree celsius temperature. The DSC data below shows the curing curve for the sample.
The total curing temperature was determined to be approximately 260 celsius which is the temperature
that was used in the hot press for creating the final prepreg coupons.

Instron
Upon completing the composite coupons, we conducted a three-point bend test using the instron
load cell. Like a tension or compressive test, a flexural test will give several useful data points in helping
to characterize the material. The three point bending test was chosen as the information gained closely
simulates the kinds of loading a snowboard experiences in real life. The tasks of running the three-point
bend test and coordinating preparation of the sample pieces after failure were assigned to Anni and Gavin.

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The data then needed to be analyzed and the broken pieces needed to be prepared for the use of light
optical microscopy and for the use of the scanning electron microscope to further analyze the fracture
surfaces.
We had initially also planned to use the instron to perform double cantilever beam and shear
stress tests in order to quantify the delamination of the epoxies / skins of the coupons from the core, but
we unfortunately ran out of time before this could be done. Fortunately the three point bend test proved to
be very informative on its own.
The general procedure for this test consisted of first cutting the coupons to fit the ASTM standard
for three point bending tests on composite structures. We settled on dimensions of 30 cm in length and 5
cm in width, this step was performed by Tatyana Galenko, who we are very thankful for. Then using the
instron load frame with appropriate size three point bend fixtures the test was conducted by slowly
bending the coupons until fracture failure and reading the resulting data. The instron was able to provide
us with information on flexural yield and flexural modulus directly while the amount of energy required
to fracture we were able to determine by integrating the area underneath the stress strain curve. From the
instron testing the maple core coupon with wet layup proved to be the most resilient in each category, yet
when comparing to the professionally made snowboard we learned our coupons were about 25-50%
weaker. We believe this can be attributed to both skill in craftsmanship, quality of materials used, and the
fact that the industry board was a foam and wood composite utilizing the strengths of both materials in
combination.

Charpy
A charpy impact test was performed on our coupons because we believed it would be an
approximate simulation of a snowboard impacting hard objects such as rocks or trees at high velocities.
Typically, however, the charpy impact test is not performed on composite materials because of how weak
they are in terms of fracture toughness compared to metals. Because of this our charpy samples did not
have a notch as that would make them so weak that no measurement would register on the machine. The
test was done by Kenza, Gavin, and Sam during lab and the samples were cut by Tatyana to the standard
charpy size of approximately 6.5 cm long and 1 cm thick. The various samples were then tested for
impact energy absorption at 21 C, 0 C, -9 C, and -150 C. The test consisted of raising and releasing a
heavy hammer pendulum while following all necessary safety precautions, and then reading the impact
energy marked by a dial on the machine. As expected, we found the energy absorption decreased with a
decrease in temperature as the materials become more brittle. From the data we found that the foam core
composite had the best energy absorption while the poplar wood core composite was a close second in
this test. This was an interesting result because in our three point bend test the maple core composite
coupon proved significantly better in energy absorption than foam. These tests are not conclusive
however as the read out is analog leading to some human error, and that over the observed data ranges,
there was a large amount of variability. As we were reading impact energies on the scale of four to seven
joules, even a slight change in procedure could have lead to a large error in the reading.

SEM

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 SEM was assigned to Huang and performed on the fracture surfaces of the coupon samples after
they had fractured in the instron three point bend tests. The objective of this analysis was to further
understand the fracture mechanism of the coupons as well as to determine whether the fracture was due to
delamination first or actual fracture of the core material.
The general procedure of running the samples through SEM consisted of initially cutting the
samples to an appropriate size (5 mm by 5 mm) that would would fit into the SEM and then sputter
coating the samples with platinum in order to allow electric conduction. The actual SEM analysis was
performed by Tuesday Kuykendall who then provided our group with the final images. The SEM analysis
turned out useful and conclusive. Huang was also able to obtain optical microscopy images of the
fracture, but the results were not as conclusive compared to the SEM.
By comparing the wet layup and the prepreg, SEM images showed that different fracture
mechanisms occurred. Figure 2 shows that the delamination happened within the wood fiber.

Figure 2. Poplar wet-layup fracture surface Figure 3. Poplar prepreg fracture interface

The epoxy resin was stronger than the wood fibers such that the wood fibers broke before the resin and
caused the delamination. In Figure 2, the yellow circle indicates the pieces of the wood fibers that were
broken off from poplar wood. The purple line is the resin-wood interface and showed no delamination.
On the other hand, Figure 3 shows a clean delamination interface which strongly indicates the weakness
in the resin-wood interface. As shown on the image, the resin-wook interface is only place where the
delamination happened. There is no wood fibers found on or embedded in the resin-wood interface which
implies that the fibers were about to withstand the stress more than the resin-wood interface.
Comparatively, the wet-layup samples also had more toughness and ultimate tensile strength which agrees
with our SEM analysis.

Conclusions
In comparison to the coupon sample cut out from a complete snowboard, our results generally
didnt meet this set standard. There are numerous factors that can contribute to this lack of mechanical
strengths i.e. the properties that were derived from the 3-point bend test performed on the instron. First

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and foremost, the adhesion between the layers was observed to be the primary contributor to the
shortcomings. During instron testing we observed that the core of the material did not fracture or yield
significantly until the fiberglass top layer delaminated from the core. This can be seen by a brief drop in
stress from the ultimate flexural stress followed by a larger drop off at a later strain.
In our configuration, the top layer of laminate carries the compression load applied from the
bending of the part, while the bottom layer carries the tension
load. These force causes a transverse shear stress that exists in
between the core layer and the top laminate layer to occur.
This shear will cause delamination as the shear begins to
break epoxy linkages between the two layers. Further analysis
of delamination should show that the surface contact area
should be the main contributor to delamination stress. We
hypothesize this based on our observations of the core
material and comparing microscopy observations to the
calculated ultimate flexural stress shown in table 2. It can
generally be seen that cores with smoother surfaces have
higher yield stresses, likely due to the fiberglass skins having
more area to adhere to the core. Note that composite
laminates are generally great in tension, however fall short in
compression, meaning that the laminate does not want to compress while it is willing to stretch. The
primary carrier of this force is the adhesion layer, which is why the primary mode of failure for this
structure is delamination. Since the laminate is less willing to compress than it is to stretch, the
delamination always occurred at the top layer. The bending stress-strain curve acquired from the
snowboard coupon also displayed this behavior, indicating delamination was the primary mode of failure
for this coupon as well.
In terms of cores, the honeycomb cores exhibited failure the fastest, or at the lowest strain. This
makes sense since the surface area of adhesion between the laminate and the honeycomb is significantly
smaller than both the wood and the foam. This also endorses delamination as the primary cause of failure.
After delamination occurred however, wood exhibited the best resistance to bending, with this
understanding wood would likely be the best option for structures lacking a good adhesion. Looking at
the two types of layups employed, the wet layups exhibited better mechanical strengths (Figure 5). The
wet layup with maple core had a higher ultimate strength than the maple core with prepreg, while the wet
layup with poplar core had a higher ultimate strength than the poplar core with prepreg laminates. There
can be many contributing factors to this as well such as fiber orientation, thickness in laminates etc.
However the primary candidate for this difference still points to the degree of adhesion. The adhesion in
the wet layups had to have been much stronger since the excess epoxy used in the wet layup after being
applied to the fiber cloth was also applied to the cores during the layup. The prepreg layers were layered
on the bottom and top of the wood cores under the assumption that the prepreg would bind to the cores.
This assumption proved valid however the adhesion was not as good as the adhesion of the wet layups.
Images acquired by optical microscopy and SEM of the fracture surfaces display the adhesion layers, and
can backup the previous statement.

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 One particularly contradictory trend is the absorption of energy depending on the type of core.
Due to the mechanical properties of foam4, 5, we believed that as a core it would absorb the most energy.
While the charpy tests seem to agree with this theory (Figure 6), the flexural data disagrees, and the foam
core absorbed the second least amount of energy, after only the aluminum honeycomb cores. Again, we
believe this can be attributed to the lack of adhesion between layers.
The difference in layups of the honeycomb cores is hard to validate since a separate adhesion
layer was required to adhere the prepreg layers, since the epoxy from the prepreg most likely would not
have been enough. This caused them to have similar mechanical properties, likely since both had solid
adhesion layers. It can be concluded that the snowboard had much better forms of adhesion between the
layers than what we used for our coupons, preventing delamination from occurring much sooner.
Other contributing factors that caused the coupons to fall short of the snowboard involved the
other layers of the snowboard that werent incorporated on our coupons. Although we conclude that the
sandwich core of the snowboard is the most important contributor, the top layer and bottom base layer
definitely add to the mechanical properties, along with the extra adhesion between theses layers to hold
more of the transverse shear stress that causes delamination. The snowboard also had a composite core
structure within the sandwich structure. The core was composed of both wood and foam, the wood being
the inner core with the foam being the outer core, also improving desired properties. In continuation of
this research, it would be most advantageous to first look at improving the adhesion layers. Delamination
of this structures is the big weakness in this design, and prevention of this would greatly improve
properties across the board.

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Figure 5: a) Flexural modulus found as the slope of the linear portion of the stress strain curve, shows
stiffness of coupons to bending. b) Flexural yield strength calculated at 0.02% offset. c) Ultimate flexural
strength, detailing the amount of stress endured by composite before delamination occurred. d) Stored
energy found by integrating the stress over the strain.

Room Ice temp Ice + salt Liquid N2

temp 21 C 0C water -150 C
-9C

Poplar 2 2 2 0.5
Prepreg

Foam fiber 7 7.5 7 7

Maple fiber 4 5 5 5.5

Poplar fiber 8 6.5 6.5 5.5

Figure 6: Charpy impact test data at different temperatures. Units are in J/m 3

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tuesday Kuykendall for ordering and providing us will all our necessary supplies so quickly,
and doing SEM on our fractured samples. Thanks to Tatyana Galenko for cutting all of our coupons.
Thanks to Weishi Yan for helping us with instron bending tests. And thanks to Michelle Hickner from the
Mechanical Engineering department for teaching us how to utilize the ME composites lab as well as
teaching us about composite layups.

References
1. Borsellino, C.; Calabrese, L.; Passari, R.; Valenza, A. Study Of Snowboard Sandwich
Structures. Sandwich Structures 7: Advancing with Sandwich Structures and Materials. 967976.

2. Brennan, S. M.; Kollr, L. P.; Springer, G. S. Modelling The Mechanical Characteristics and
on-Snow Performance of Snowboards. Sports Eng Sports Engineering. 2003, 6, 193206.

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3. Grewal, D.; Lund, C.; Rossetter, E.; Dean, S. Experimental Measurement Of Selected Snowboard
Mechanical Properties. J. ASTM Int. Journal of ASTM International. 2006, 3, 14194.

4. Ji, G.; Ouyang, Z.; Li, G. Debonding And Impact Tolerant Sandwich Panel with Hybrid Foam
Core. Composite Structures. 2013, 103, 143150.

5. Kumar, S. A.; Ahmed, K. S. Flexural Behavior of Stiffened Syntactic Foam Core Sandwich
Composites. Journal of Sandwich Structures and Materials. 2014, 16, 195209.

6. Miller, W.; Smith, C.; Evans, K. Honeycomb Cores with Enhanced Buckling Strength.
Composite Structures. 2011, 93, 10721077

7. Xie, D.; Biggers, S. B. Delamination Growth And Residual Strength of Compressively Loaded
Sandwich Panels with Stiffness Tailored Face Sheets. Journal of Sandwich Structures and
Materials. 2009, 11, 133150.

Secondary Sources:
MSE 313 Coursepack
MSE 312 -313 Operating Procedures: TA Instruments TGA, DSC, Instron

Standard Test Method for Tensile Properties of Polymer Matrix COmposite Materials Active Standard
ASTM international D7250/D7250M, Book of Standards 2016, Volume 15.03