Manufacturing and mechanical characterisation of polyurethane resin based sandwich composites for three-dimensional fabric reinforcement

This article aims to develop a new type of sandwich composite with 3D fabrics structure. The sandwich composite was a lightweight composite with reasonable mechanical properties and was manufactured by compression molding. The 3D fabrics were produced by sewing jute yarns having configurable structures using Kevlar fiber threads. The composites had been subjected to compression, flexural and impact tests and their fracture surfaces had been characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The compression and impact properties of the blank composites and the sandwich composites were compared. In terms of flexural performance, three types of flexural failure modes were analyzed.