Mechanical response of sisal/glass fabrics reinforced polyester – polyethylene terephthalate foam core sandwich panels

The object of this study is to investigate the influence of different fabrics’ configurations, of faced polyester-sisal fiber composites, on the mechanical behavior of a vacuum infused polyethylene terephthalate-foam core sandwich panel. Sisal-unidirectional (yarn and combed yarn fabrics) and plain weave fabrics were fabricated and the sandwiches’ performances were compared to faced polyester-unidirectional glass fabric. Comparisons about the morphological aspects and relations with mechanical behavior (flatwise and edgewise compression and 3-point bending) were performed. Different face sheets’ thickness was used for this purpose, aiming to correlate the results found for those sisal and glass sandwich panels. The main results showed that faced sisal fabrics/polyester present competitive performance and sometimes higher than those glass/polyester, due to differences on failure mechanisms of the panels.