Structural integrity and morphology of glass fibre‐aluminium foam epoxy sandwich composites

Sandwich composites are used in automobiles, aerospace, shipbuilding and structural applications in civil engineering. In the present investigation, glass fibre reinforced aluminium foam (AA6061‐T6) sandwich laminates are fabricated in four different layers of 1 mm‐thickened aluminium foam (0, 1, 2 and 3) that have been combined with epoxy resin in the hand layup method. The four different combination samples were indexed as S1 – S4. The tensile, flexural, impact strength and hardness test were performed to study the mechanical properties of the developed sandwich composites, and the morphological study of tensile fractured specimens was carried out using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results indicated that the morphologies of the sandwich composites enhanced their mechanical characteristics by increasing the bonding between the epoxy and aluminium foam. The two‐layer aluminium foam sandwich composite (S2) has better mechanical properties than the other three aluminium foam sandwich composites, including tensile (102.3 MPa), flexural (7.7 kN), impact strength (11.9 kJ/m 2 ) and hardness (242 HV 10), which indicates its enhanced structural performance. The mechanical strength of the aluminium foam sandwich composite is further supported by the findings of scanning electron microscopy scans. This work advances engineering in the real world by offering a useful guideline for improving aluminium foam layers in sandwich composites.