Composite sandwich structures with rapid prototyped cores

Richard R. Williams and William E. Howard

Department of Engineering, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA, and

Scott M. Martin
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of using rapid prototyping (RP) technologies (stereolithography (SLA), fused deposition modeling (FDM), and three-dimensional printing (3DP)) for fabrication of the core of a composite sandwich structure. Design/methodology/approach Control cores of a at geometry were fabricated from epoxy using SLA and from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic using FDM. Corrugated geometry cores were fabricated using SLA, FDM, and 3DP. Carbon-epoxy composite sandwich structures were fabricated from all cores using a wet-hand layup process with vacuum cure. The performance of each core was measured using a bend test to determine bending stiffness and failure load. Findings Based upon bending stiffness and failure load, composite sandwich structures utilizing epoxy cores fabricated via SLA outperformed composite sandwich structures utilizing plaster powder and ABS plastic cores. Composite sandwich structures with corrugated ABS plastic cores outperformed those with at ABS plastic cores by a margin well beyond that predicted by theory in both bending stiffness and failure load. Research limitations/implications The marked improvement in stiffness and failure load of the composite sandwich structures with corrugated ABS plastic cores over those with at ABS cores is not explained by the theoretical improvement due to an increased area moment of inertia and increased surface area. Additional research in the failure mechanism is warranted. Practical implications The ability to easily create complex core geometries will allow for the ability to place enhanced structural features in the regions of high stress. Originality/value This paper demonstrates that cores fabricated via RP technology and containing enhanced structural features are suitable for carbon-epoxy composite sandwich structures. Keywords Rapid prototypes, Composite materials, Core, Carbon, Sandwich structures Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Composite sandwich structures are used primarily in industries such as aeronautics, land transportation, and marine construction (Russo and Zuccarello, 2007). In past research, fabrication and testing of sandwich structures have been performed with predominately at constructions due to the timely and expensive tooling required to create intricate shapes from existing core materials (Daniel and Abot, 2000; Russo and Zuccarello, 2007; Shivakumar and Smith, 2004). This study investigates the feasibility of using cores manufactured using rapid prototyping (RP) technologies in composite sandwich structures. RP is used to create the sandwich cores in order to minimize the time, cost, and skill required to create cores with complex geometries. The ability to easily create complex core geometries will allow for the creation
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of both custom and optimized composite sandwich structures, providing the ability to easily place enhanced structural features in regions of high stress. In addition, since the core is made directly from a CAD le, modications may be performed quickly and inexpensively. This exibility makes the optimization of customized sandwich structures practical. Other researchers have attempted to make robust parts using RP technologies. Both pre- and post-processing techniques have been adapted to improve the mechanical properties of rapid prototyped parts. There have been studies which examine inltration of build materials with ber reinforcement (Cheah et al., 1999; Gray et al., 1998) prior to part fabrication in RP processes. Electroplating of nished parts has also been proven to improve the tensile strength and Youngs modulus of rapid prototyped parts (Saleh et al., 2004). In other research, laminated object manufacturing was used to create molds for a vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding
The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of John Choren of Milwaukee School of Engineering and Ron Soucy and Dean Sirois of Pratt &Whitney.

Rapid Prototyping Journal 17/2 (2011) 92 97 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1355-2546] [DOI 10.1108/13552541111113835]

Received: 2 July 2009 Revised: 4 March 2010 Accepted: 8 March 2010

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Composite sandwich structures with rapid prototyped cores Richard R. Williams, William E. Howard and Scott M. Martin

Rapid Prototyping Journal Volume 17 Number 2 2011 92 97

(VARTM) process (Tari et al., 1998). As stated by Tari, tooling comprises a large portion of the costs associated with VARTM. RP technologies minimize this cost and allow for the optimization of the mold design (i.e. location of inlet and outlet ports). Additional time and cost savings and design exibility are available when free form fabrication is used rather than implementing a mold. The present study concentrates on composite sandwich structures assembled by wet-hand layup of carbon bers with epoxy resin over rapid prototyped cores. In this process, no mold is required, as the contour of the part is controlled by that of the rigid core.

Figure 2 Geometry of corrugated core

1.00 0.125 Typ 16X R.10

0.125

2. Experimental procedure
2.1 Core design and fabrication Composite sandwich structures are used for a variety of applications due to their stiffness and strength. The outer layers of the sandwich are normally high-strength skins of composite laminates or metal which are responsible for resisting bending and in-plane loads. The main function of the core of the structure is simply to provide separation distance between the skins. The core contributes minimally to the bending strength and stiffness of the structure, but must be capable of transferring shear loads between the skins. The core must also resist crushing in the vicinity of point loads. Cores are commonly made of lightweight materials such as balsa wood or PVC foam (Daniel et al.). Sandwich structures with RP cores were constructed and tested to characterize their mechanical properties. Stereolithography (SLA), fused deposition modeling (FDM), and three-dimensional printing (3DP) processes were used to manufacture the cores. Two core geometries were constructed with nominal dimensions of 1 6 1/8 in. The rst core has a at geometry as shown in Figure 1. The at core was fabricated in order to provide a baseline in which to compare the second core. The second core, utilizing a corrugated geometry, was fabricated and tested to investigate the practicality of optimizing core geometry in composite sandwich structures. The design of the corrugated core is such that the overall crosssectional area is the same as the at core, and hence the volume of the cores is also the same. The geometry of the cross-section of the corrugated core is shown in Figure 2. Figure 1 Geometry of at baseline core

Corrugating the cores provides three expected benets. First, corrugation provides a slight increase in the area moment of inertia of the sandwich structure, thus improving the bending stiffness and strength compared to a at core. Second, the bonding area between the core and the skins is increased for the corrugated core, resulting in lower average shear stresses at the core-to-skin interface. Third, since carbon sandwich structures tend to fail in compression due to local buckling, corrugation provides a signicant increase in the area moment of inertia of the carbon skin, thus improving the local buckling resistance of the carbon sandwich structure compared to a at core. The bending stiffness of a simply supported beam is dened as the load per unit deection and is given by equation (1) as: P 48EI 3 d L 1

where P is the load, d is the deection, E is the elastic modulus of the carbon skins, I is area moment of inertia of the composite sandwich structure cross-section and L is the span length of the beam. Taking E and L to be constant between the at and corrugated composite sandwich structures, the stiffness of the corrugated composite relative to the at composite is given by equation (2) as: Stiffnessw I w Stiffnessf If 2

6.00

where the subscripts w and f refer to the corrugated (wavy) and at composite sandwich structure, respectively. Figures 3 and 4 show detail views of the cross-sections of the two composite sandwich structures and show the parameters that are required to calculate the area moment of inertia about the neutral axis for the composite sandwich structure. For each structure, the area moment of inertia for the individual sections (core and skin) was calculated via a CAD program. The skin thickness was taken to be 0.05 in. By design, the distance between the neutral axis (x-x) of the composite sandwich structure and the center of area of the skin, d, is 0.0875 in. for both designs. Similarly, the cross-sectional area of the skin, A, of each design is 0.050 in2. Figure 3 Geometry of at core cross-section
Skin, Is = 1.0417e-5 in4, A = 0.050 in2 Core, Ic = 1.6276e-4in4 d = 0.0875 in

1.00

0.125 x x

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Composite sandwich structures with rapid prototyped cores Richard R. Williams, William E. Howard and Scott M. Martin

Rapid Prototyping Journal Volume 17 Number 2 2011 92 97

Figure 4 Geometry of corrugated core cross-section

Skin, Is = 2.369e-5 in4, A = 0.05 in2 Core, Ic = 1.9595e-4 in4 d = 0.0875 in x x

The second expected benet of the corrugated core is to lower the average shear stress at the core-to-skin interface. The average shear strength at the interface is calculated by the equation (6) as:

tavg

VQ It

The area moment of inertia for a composite sandwich structure about its neutral axis, INA, can be calculated from equation (3) as: I NA I c;NA 2I s;NA 3

where V the shear force, Q the rst moment of area of the area above the interface, relative to the neutral axis, I the area moment of inertia of the entire cross-section, and t the length of the interface. For a given value of shear force, the ratio of shear stresses between the two designs is given by equation (7) as:

tw Qw I f t f tf Qf I w t w

where Ic,NA is the effective area moment of inertia of the core about the composite sandwich structures neutral axis and Is,NA, is area moment of inertia of the carbon skin about the composite sandwich structures neutral axis. The factor of two applied to Is,NA accounts for two symmetric skins. The effective area moment of inertia of the core de-rates the value of the area moment of inertia of the core shown in Figures 3 and 4 in order to account for the fact that the cores have a much lower elastic modulus than the skins. For the both core designs, the cores center of area is located at the neutral axis of the composite sandwich structure and the effective area moment of inertia of the core is calculated from equation (4), given as: I c;NA Ec Ic Es 4

Referring to Figure 3, Qf 0:050 in:0:0875 in: 4:3750 1023 in:2 and tf 1 in. As calculated earlier, If 7.8917 102 4 in.4. Referring to Figure 4, the value of Qw is the same as that of Qf. The value of tf is calculated by adding the arc lengths dening the cross-section; this turns out to be 1.0802 in. As calculated earlier, Iw 8.1627 102 4 in.4. Substituting these values into equation (7) results in a shear stress ratio of 0.895. In other works, the average shear stress at the interface is about 10 percent less for the corrugated-core structure than for the at-core structure. The third expected benet of corrugation is to improve the buckling resistance of the skin that is in compression. For a simply supported beam under compression, the critical buckling load, Pcr, is given by equation (8) as: P cr

where Ec and Es are the elastic modulus of the core and skin material, respectively. Taking Ec equal to 3 105 psi and Es equal to 18 106 psi de-rates the area moment of inertia by a factor of sixty, yielding values of I c;NA 2:7127 1026 in:4 for the at core and I c;NA 3:2658 1026 in:4 for the corrugated core. The value of Is,NA is calculated using the values of Is given in Figures 3 and 4 and applying the parallel axis theorem per equation (5) to account for the fact that the skins are located a distance d from the neutral axis: I s;NA I s Ad
2

p2 EI L2

where L is the length of the column under consideration. Making the assumption that the local buckling column length is the same between the at and corrugated skin, the improvement in buckling resistance can be estimated by taking the ratio of equation (8) for the two skin geometries, yielding equation (9) as: Buckling Resistencew I s;w Buckling Resistencef I s;f 9

Substituting in the values of Is, A, and d into equation (5) yields values of I s;NA 3:9323 1024 in:4 for the at skin and I s;NA 4:0650 1024 in:4 for the corrugated skin. The values of Is,NA are nearly identical for both skins due to the fact that the Ad2 term of equation (5) is identical for both skins and dominates the equation. Substituting the calculated values of Ic,NA and Is,NA into equation (3) yields values of I NA I f 7:8917 1024 in:4 for the at skin and I NA I w 8:1627 1024 in:4 for the corrugated skin (note that if the contribution to the stiffness of the cores is neglected completely, the error introduced into the calculations is less than half of 1 percent). Substituting these values into equation (2) yields a stiffness ratio of 1.034. Although the improvement in stiffness due to the corrugations is not signicant, the intent of this work was not to optimize the core geometry, but to demonstrate the concept of using RP to fabricate composite sandwich cores and apply enhanced features to that core that would, in turn, allow for the optimization of the core. 94

where Is,f and Is,w is the area moment of inertia of the at and corrugated skin, respectively. Substituting the values of the area moment of inertia for the skins shown in Figures 3 and 4 yields a buckling resistance ratio of 2.274. This implies that a corrugated core should be much more resistant to failure when the failure mode is local buckling of the carbon skin. The RP processes employed to fabricate the cores are layered manufacturing processes. SLA is a process whereby photoreactive liquid resins are solidied by a computer-controlled ultraviolet laser. A layer of uncured resin is deposited on a build platform. The laser then passes over the platform, curing a cross-section of the desire form. The platform indexes downward by a specied layer thickness and a recoating blade deposits a new layer of uncured resin. This procedure is repeated until the part is complete. A 3DP operates in similar fashion; however, the laser is replaced with an ink jet printer head which distributes an adhesive binder onto a plaster-based powder. The process of indexing and recoating follow the same pattern as the SLA process. To ensure durability, the resulting part must be

Composite sandwich structures with rapid prototyped cores Richard R. Williams, William E. Howard and Scott M. Martin

Rapid Prototyping Journal Volume 17 Number 2 2011 92 97

inltrated with a hardening additive in a post-processing step. The inlterant used in this work was epoxy resin. The FDM process does not begin with a full layer of uncured material. A thin bead of melted material (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic was used in this study) is deposited on the build platform in the shape of a cross-section of the desired form. The platform then indexes downward in the same manner as in the SLA process, and the next crosssection is applied to the existing material. A separate removable support material is deposited to ll gaps where needed. The SLA, 3DP, and FDM machines and materials used to fabricate the cores were the 3D Systems SLA 5000 using an epoxy resin, the Z-corp ZPrinter 310 using ZP130 plaster powder, and the Stratasys Dimension SST using ABS plastic, respectively. 2.2 Composite sandwich structure fabrication The composite sandwich structure specimens were fabricated using six layers of unidirectional carbon cloth (5.8 oz/yd2) per side of the core in a wet layup process. The 1 6 in. carbon cloths were individually wetted using Epic Resins X97 B2645 Epoxy. The wet specimens were placed between a layer of peelply and then surrounded by bleeder cloth. The entire assembly surrounded by the peel-ply and bleeder cloth was then placed in a vacuum bag and allowed to cure under vacuum for 24 h. Upon initial cure, the composite sandwich structures were removed from the vacuum bag, separated from the peel-ply and placed in an oven at a temperature of 708C for an additional 24 h of cure. A second set of carbon epoxy skins (no core) was also fabricated using the same wet layup and curing procedure. These skins provide a measurement of the skin thickness and ber volume obtained in the wet layup process and provided a measurement of the tensile modulus of the carbon ber skins. The ber volume calculated from these samples was approximately 50 percent. The modulus of elasticity was measured at about 18 106 psi, which is consistent with the 50 percent ber volume. 2.3 Composite sandwich structure bend test The specimens were tested in a three-point bend test. The tests were conducted on an Instron 5860 series table model tester tted with a 2810 series bend/exure xture. The span was set to 4 in. and the load cell advanced at a rate of 1/4 in./min. Figure 5 shows the bend test xture. Load and deection data were collected by a computer during testing of each specimen. The samples were loaded until failure occurred. Load versus deection was plotted for each specimen. A typical plot showing each core type tested is shown in Figure 6. The parameters that characterize the performance of the composite sandwich structure are the failure load and the stiffness. The failure load is simply the maximum load recorded prior to failure and the stiffness was calculated by using a linear regression curve t on the linear region prior to failure. The slope of the best t line is the stiffness of the composite sandwich structure measured in the units of lbs/in.

Figure 5 Instron 2810 bend/exure xture

Load cell

Specimen

Span Fixture

Figure 6 Typical bend test data for the ve core types

1,000 900 800 700 Load, lbf 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 Deflection, inches 0.12 0.14 0.16 Corrugated SLA Flat SLA Corrugated 3DP Corrugated FDM Flat FDM

3. Results and discussion

Table I shows the results of the bend test for each core RP process and geometry. The compliance of the Instron tester and xture were not accounted in the bend test data, therefore the value of the 95

stiffness shown in Table I is under reported. Of more interest for this study is the relative stiffness compared to a baseline of the SLA at cores. Table II shows the average failure load and average stiffness for each composite sandwich structure core geometry relative to the average failure load and stiffness of the composite sandwich structure using SLA at cores. The results of the bend tests clearly show a signicant difference between the performance of the composite sandwich structures as a function of core type. Cores manufactured by the SLA process produced sandwich structures with the highest stiffness and failure load. This was expected due to the mechanical characteristics of the epoxy and strong epoxyto-epoxy bonding between the SLA cores and skins. The measured stiffness ratio of the corrugated and at SLA cores is 1.09 compared to a calculated value of 1.03, although it should be noted that a t-test on both the maximum load and stiffness indicates no statistically signicant difference in the performance of the two SLA core types. The failure mode for both the at and corrugated SLA specimens appeared to be compression failure in the skin. The highest failure load corresponded to a maximum bending stress in the skin of about 186,000 psi, a reasonable compressive strength for a wet-layup carbon-epoxy composite. The FDM cores had a failure mechanism of delamination of the skin from the core. A t-test on both the maximum load and

Composite sandwich structures with rapid prototyped cores Richard R. Williams, William E. Howard and Scott M. Martin

Rapid Prototyping Journal Volume 17 Number 2 2011 92 97

Table I Results of the bend test for each core type

Core RP process FDM Core geometry Flat Failure load (lbf) 102 105 105 171 186 225 263 356 369 375 400 851 901 927 985 998 893 897 952 1,092 1,128 Stiffness (lbf/in) 858 847 1,790 3,617 4,555 4,998 5,675 5,917 6,380 6,095 5,798 7,576 8,149 8,165 8,256 8,479 7,879 8,378 8,388 9,802 9,902

Corrugated

3DP

Corrugated

to some degree by lateral forces related to the bond between the skin and the core. If the bond begins to degrade, then the lateral constraint is diminished and the tendency to buckle increases. A detailed analysis of this complex failure analysis may be warranted as further study. The performance of the 3DP cores was not as good as the SLA cores. Post bend test visual inspection of the 3DP specimens indicated that the 3DP cores were locally crushed in the region where the test xture applied the load. While the 3DP cores were inltrated with epoxy, the resulting powderepoxy composite tends to be weak and brittle. The epoxycarbon skins remained bonded to the 3DP cores; however, it is hypothesized that the brittle core began to fail at low loads, resulting in decreased strength and stiffness as compared to the SLA cores.

SLA

Flat

4. Conclusions and future work

This work demonstrated the feasibility of using RP technologies to manufacture cores for composite sandwich structures. A corrugation feature demonstrated the feasibility of placing geometry within a core structure that could allow for the optimization of mechanical properties such as stiffness or strength. Based upon failure load and bending stiffness, the composite sandwich structures fabricated from SLA cores proved most feasible due to superior intrinsic strength and adhesion to the carbon epoxy skins. The 3DP and FDM cores proved to be less feasible. The composite sandwich structures fabricated from corrugated 3DP cores performed at 0.38 the failure load and 0.73 the stiffness of the at SLA cores and failed as a result of brittleness. The composite sandwich structures fabricated from at FDM cores performed at 0.11 the failure load and 0.14 the stiffness of the at SLA cores due to poor adhesion between the ABS material of the core and the epoxy. While the FDM cores performed poorly compared to the SLA cores, the corrugated FDM cores outperformed the at FDM cores well beyond that predicted by theory. Given that the FDM process is the most attractive from a manufacturing cost and availability standpoint, a study of the failure mechanism related to this behavior and efforts to improve the adhesion between the cores and the skins warrants further study.

Corrugated

Table II Results of the bend test for each core type relative to at SLA cores
Core RP process FDM 3DP SLA Core geometry Flat Corrugated Corrugated Flat Corrugated Normalized failure load 0.11 0.21 0.38 1.00 1.06 Normalized stiffness 0.14 0.54 0.73 1.00 1.09

stiffness indicate a signicant difference (95 percent condence) between the performance of the two FDM core types. The corrugated FDM cores had a higher failure load than the at FDM cores. This is most likely due to better adhesion of the skin to the corrugated core because of an increase in surface area due to the design and an increase in surface roughness due to the stair-stepping that occurs on the curved surface. The measured stiffness ratio of the corrugated and at FDM cores is 3.85 compared to a calculated value of 1.03. The stiffness analysis presented herein assumes that the core and skins act as one unit. It is hypothesized that there is relative movement between the core and skins even at very low bending loads. This movement may be due to both the nature of the FDM core, essentially laments bonded by line or point contact, or the poor adhesion of the epoxy-carbon skins to the ABS core. Also, the measured strength ratio between the corrugated and at cores of 1.91 is much greater than that predicted by the relative shear stress ratio, and is closer to the calculated skin bucking resistance ratio. This result could be the result of a more complex failure mechanism. The composite skin under compressive loading is constrained from buckling 96

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Cheah, C., Fuh, J., Nee, A. and Lu, L. (1999), Mechanical characteristics of ber-lled photo-polymer used in stereolithography, Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 112-19. Daniel, I. and Abot, J. (2000), Fabrication, testing and analysis of composite sandwich beams, Composites Science and Technology, Vol. 60, pp. 2455-63. Gray, R., Baird, D. and Bohn, J. (1998), Effects of processing conditions on short TLCP ber reinforced FDM parts, Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 14-25. Russo, A. and Zuccarello, B. (2007), Experimental and numerical evaluation of the mechanical behaviour of GFRP sandwich panels, Composite Structures, Vol. 81, pp. 575-86. Saleh, N., Hopkinson, N., Hague, R. and Wise, S. (2004), Effects of electroplating on the mechanical properties of

Composite sandwich structures with rapid prototyped cores Richard R. Williams, William E. Howard and Scott M. Martin

Rapid Prototyping Journal Volume 17 Number 2 2011 92 97

stereolithography and laser sintered parts, Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 10 No. 5, pp. 305-15. Shivakumar, K. and Smith, S. (2004), In situ fracture toughness testing of core materials in sandwich panels, Journal of Composite Materials, Vol. 38 No. 8, pp. 655-68. Tari, M., Bals, A., Park, J., Lin, M. and Hahn, H. (1998), Rapid prototyping of composite parts using resin transfer

molding and laminated object manufacturing, Composites Part A, Vol. 29A, pp. 65l-661.

Corresponding author
Richard R. Williams can be contacted at: williamsric@ecu.edu

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