Manufacturing and Mechanical Properties of Glass Bubbles/Epoxy Particulate Composite

Abstract

The objective of this work is to manufacture particulate composites. to measure their compressive mechanical properties and to model the behavior by finite element analysis. Syntactic foams, glass bubbles in epoxy resin, have low density and hence are of particular interest for subsea applications. The research reported here is undertaken in the context of a submersible manipulator. In the laboratory two types of specimens are manufactured and tested, including (a) coupons of the same particle size with varied particle volume fractions and (b) coupons of the same particle volume fraction with different particle sizes. From the compressive test, we receive the fracture strength and observe the fracture mechanism. Also the buoyance is obtained. In order to correlate the experimental data, the three-dimensional (3-D) finite element method of axis symmetry and cubic center symmetry is used numerically. The predicted values and locations of the maximum tensile stresses of specimens agree well with the failure mechanism. It is found that small particles are stronger than matrix, whilst larger particles are weaker than matrix. A decrease in particle volume fraction increases the strength at fixed particle size. An increase in particle size increases the strength at fixed particle volume fraction.