SBIR Phase II: Innovative Recycled Microballoon Thermoplastic Sandwich Composites

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)二期项目将利用可回收的热塑性复合材料来开发下一代轻质材料，以实现交通、住宅和商业建筑应用的能效和冲击保护。以前的工作表明，将玻璃纤维和热塑性面板以及复合泡沫结合在一起，可以生产出比铝面胶合板更耐冲击的复合板。这项工作将扩大材料和加工范围，以生产一系列由回收玻璃增强/热塑性面板制成的复合板，以及由玻璃或陶瓷微球和再生或未研磨聚合物组成的复合泡沫芯材。使用中空微球可以实现低重量和高冲击强度，同时使用低成本的挤压-压缩加工技术。这种配置可以很容易地量身定做，以生产各种板材应用，如卡车拖车车身或防止飓风造成的碎片飞扬。这项研究的更广泛影响是增加了回收材料的使用，以减轻商业运输车辆的重量，从而提高了燃油经济性，减少了道路和桥梁的退化。此外，改进飓风期间的冲击保护系统将减少对商业和住宅结构的破坏，并减少生命损失。将发电厂灰烬中的空心陶瓷微球与重新粉碎的聚合物废物相结合的技术将产生一种具有独特性能的材料，可应用于各种商业应用。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will develop the next generation of lightweight materials by utilizing recycled thermoplastic composites to achieve energy efficiency and impact protection for transportation and residential and commercial building applications. Previous work showed that combining fiberglass and thermoplastic face sheets and syntactic foam produced composite panels with greater impact resistance than plywood with aluminum facing. This work will expand the materials and processing envelope to produce a series of composite panels fabricated from recycled glass-reinforced/thermoplastic face sheets and a syntactic foam core consisting of glass or ceramic microspheres and regrind or virgin polymer. The use of hollow microspheres allows the achievement of both low weight and high impact strength while using low-cost extrusion-compression processing techniques. This configuration can be readily tailored to produce panel applications as varied as truck trailer bodies or for protection against flying debris caused by hurricane-force winds.The broader impacts of this research are the increased use of recycled materials to decrease the weight of commercial transport vehicles, resulting in increased fuel economy and decreased degradation of roadways and bridges. Also, improved systems for impact protection during hurricanes will result in less damage to commercial and residential structures and the loss of fewer lives. The technology of combining hollow ceramic microspheres from the ash of power plants with re-ground polymer waste will produce a material with unique properties that can be applied to a variety of commercial applications.