Dynamic Attenuation and Compressive Characterization of Syntactic Foams

Hollow particulate composites are lightweight, have high compressive strength, are low moisture absorbent, have high damping materials, and are used extensively in aerospace, marine applications, and in the manufacture of sandwich composites core elements. The high performance of these materials is achieved by adding high strength hollow glass particulates (microballoons) to an epoxy matrix, forming epoxy-syntactic foams. The present study focuses on the effect of volume fraction and microballoon size on the ultrasonic and dynamic properties of Epoxy Syntactic Foams. Ultrasonic attenuation coefficient from an experiment is compared with a previously developed theoretical model for low volume fractions that takes into account attenuation loss due to scattering and absorption. The guidelines of ASTM Standard E 664-93 are used to compute the apparent attenuation. Quasi-static compressive tests were also conducted to fully characterize the material. Both quasi-static and dynamic properties, as well as coefficients of attenuation and ultrasonic velocities are found to be strongly dependent upon the volume fraction and size of the microballoons.