Strengthening of Honeycomb Cardboard by FRP as Promising Green Panels

Abstract

The main objective of the present investigation is to adopt green material like sandwich honeycomb cardboard to be part of the production of structural elements. With the development of technology and the materials, the people figured out the preserving the earth materials is the most important issue that should be maintained to last the human gender. This can be secured by adopting green thoughts on manufacturing and building things needed for our life. Unfortunately, sandwich honeycomb cardboard has low mechanical properties, therefore, it is not proper for many industries except for packaging and limited applications, but definitely it is a green material worldwide available, cheap as well as recyclable. With advances of the FRP, it becomes possible to produce hybrid sections, where it can sustain higher levels of loads and at the same time being flexible, lightweight and cheap. This needs blending diverse knowledge, such as design experience, materials, and applications as well as manufacturing to come up with a creative idea to resolve challenges and problems as well as to implement green thoughts. This research proposal is a green attempt to enhance recyclable material to be used for aerospace applications through using little amounts of FRP to strengthening purposes. The honeycomb cardboard panels were strengthened using woven carbon fiber mat and epoxy. The main challenge of the research was the absorption of the epoxy by the honeycomb; therefore, different techniques were adopted to overcome this problem which led eventually to different results. The samples were tested under 3- point bending test, where the original sample results are taken as a reference to compare the other strengthened sample to figure out the percentage increase of the stiffness.