Effects of accelerated aging on compressive response of natural and synthetic core materials: freeze-thaw cycles and UV radiation

The great efforts to reduce the environmental impact of composite materials by replacing synthetic components with bio-based ones are involving also sandwich structures. Agglomerated cork proved to be a feasible alternative to traditional polymeric foam as core material. Sandwich structures are extremely prone to impact events which can cause the direct exposure of the core material to the external environment making fundamental to know how its out-of-plane properties can be influenced by external factors such as sunlight and rain. The present work assessed the effects of UV accelerated aging and freeze-thaw (FT) cycles on the compressive behavior of two agglomerated corks with different densities providing also a direct comparison with a traditional PVC foam. Agglomerated cork compressive properties increase when exposed to UV accelerated aging up to 600 h, determining an increase of 31 % and 9 % in the compressive modulus for the less dense and denser cork, respectively. No significant changes were observed for the synthetic foam. FT cycles on as-received specimens induce a decrease in cores compressive properties after 30-day cycling, with a reduction in compressive modulus of approximately 11 % for PVC foam and of 12 % and 11 % for the less dense and denser cork, respectively.