Experimental and theoretical study of sandwich composites with Z-pins under quasi-static compression loading

This study aims to enhance the compressive properties of sandwich composites containing extruded polystyrene (XPS) foam core and glass or carbon face materials by using carbon/vinyl ester and glass/vinyl ester composite Z-pins. The composite pins were inserted into foam cores at two different densities (15 and 30 mm). Compression test results showed that compressive strength, modulus and loads of the sandwich composites significantly increased after using composite Z-pins. Sandwich composites with 15 mm pin densities exhibited higher compressive properties than that of 30 mm pin densities. The pin type played a critical role whilst carbon pin reinforced sandwich composites had higher compressive properties compared to glass pin reinforced sandwich composites. Finite element analysis (FE) using Abaqus software has been established in this study to verify the experimental results. Experimental and numerical results based on the capabilities of the sandwich composites to capture the mechanical behaviour and the damage failure modes were conducted and showed a good agreement between them.