Mechanical properties of HGM/epoxy and foam aluminum-HGM/epoxy with natural aging

The HGM/epoxy composites reinforced with modified hollow glass microbeads(HGM), and with foam aluminum are prepared. Their densities of the HGM/epoxy and foal aluminum-HGM/epoxy composites before and after natural aging indoor are studied. And their yield limits and effective elastic modulus are investigated by a series of quasi static compressive experiments. The relationship between damage morphologies and material structure is discussed. The change reasons of mechanical properties of them are analyzed. It is found that the yield limit of epoxy is a little decrease after natural aging. But the mechanical properties of syntactic foams are increase after natural aging. And the increase percentage increases firstly and then decreases with the increase of HGM volume ratio. The mechanical properties of foam aluminum/epoxy have a large decrease after aging. But the mechanical properties of foam aluminum-HGM/epoxy which HGM volume ratio greater than 20% are increased.