PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The increasing demand for high-strength light-weight fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials has driven the researchers to further innovate and introduce hybrid reinforcement materials. The usage of hybrid FRP composite and metal foam in the fabrication of sandwich panel in structural industries is still new and limited research has been reported in this area. In addition, there is limited research data on aluminium foam as a core material in sandwich panel and needs to be further studied. This research is aimed to determine the bending properties of closed-cell aluminium foam sandwich panel with hybrid FRP composite face-sheets. The three-point bending tests were carried out in order to determine mechanical properties of the material, such as Young's modulus and strength. The sandwich panels were prepared using FRP composite face-sheets, which consist of carbon and glass fibres and epoxy matrix, and closed-cell aluminium foam core material. The results show that aluminium foam sandwich panel with hybrid FRP composite face-sheets exhibit higher flexural strength and modulus compared to the neat closed-cell aluminium foam panel. It also has higher flexural strength and flexural modulus, by 338% and 136% respectively, as compared to the aluminium honeycomb sandwich panel.