Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

ABSTRACT
LIGHTWEIGHT, HOLLOW-SPHERE-COMPOSITE (HSC) MATERIALS FOR ENGINEERING APPLICATION

Lightweight structure is a new trend in machine tool design to ensure higher speed and higher acceleration of elements. The drive andcontrol systems in mechanical engineering requires lightweight design provided by the recently developed light materials thus resultingin economical advantages. The hollow-sphere-composites (HSCs) consist of hollow spheres up to 80 of the volume and a reactive resinsystem as binder. The recently developed HSC materials, the hollow sphere bodies, are made from ceramics, silicates, plastics or metals andprovide a range of structural materials of different chemical composition, grain size distribution, density, bulk density, softening temperatureand compression. Therefore, a vast palette of HSC-variants can be obtained with different properties for a variety of applications. Themechanical properties of HSC materials depend on the properties of the spherical hollow bodies. The mechanical and thermal behavior of HSC materials can be characterised by using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) andthermomechanical analysis (TMA). The thermal and mechanical properties of selected HSC structures, e.g. machine tool components,robot arms, demonstrate the flexibility and application feasibility of this new material.

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction(3) 2. Hollow sphere composites..(4) 3. Properties of hollow sphere composites..(5) 4. Thermal properties..(6) 5. Mechanical properties....(10) 6. Application of HSC in mechanical engineering.(15) 7. Conclusion.(17) 8. References. (18)

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
In mechanical engineering, including automotive and aircraftmanufacture, the same lightweight building principlesare used to meet various and often complex demands inshape-, structure-, material coupled with the need for optimized production process selection for technology needs andfinancial considerations. The optimised design of machinetools using finite element methods may lead to substantialimprovements in the acceleration or damping behaviours.The application of new, alternative materials in machinetool design provides dramatic improvements in mass reductionthrough the full utilisation of material, high strengthand stiffness as well as maximum functional integrity andeconomy. The requirements for the lightweight machinestructures are characterised by the optimal use of materialquantity. These demands can rarely be satisfied with monolithicstructures. As a result, the application of cellular materials,e.g. honeycomb, metal foams or syntactic foams willsoon gain significance. A combination of metals and fibrous materials can be used adaptively to different conditions, similar to natural structures, like the hand bones as shown inFig. 1. This is a foam structure connected with the supportingsystem, where muscles and sinews are utilised formovements.

Fig. 1.Cellular structure of human hand.

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

CHAPTER II HOLLOW-SPHERE-COMPOSITES
An alternative method in reducing the mass of materials is to use a mixture of high percentage volume of hollowspheres containing air or gas, and a reactive resin system. In this research hollow-sphere-composites consistingof corundum based (0.51 mm) macro-hollow-spheres and aluminium-silicate Fillite (5300_m) micro-hollow-spheres are used as shown in Fig. 2. In the recent research programme 12 different types of hollow spheres were used in combination with cold andwarm hardener epoxy resin (EP) and with and without fibre reinforcement, resulting in excess of 20 HSC-variants with different properties. The hollow spheres vary in diameter between 10 and 2000 _m and the wall thickness is only 10% of the diameter size. The round shape of the spheres provides a high package density and a minimal viscous drag.

Fig. 2.(a) Bulk material of corundum 0.51 mm; (b) interior of Fillite (SEM); (c) hollow-spherecomposite (corundum and Fillite); (d) interior ofhollow-sphere-composite (SEM).

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

CHAPTER III PROPERTIES OF HOLLOW-SPHERE-COMPOSITES

In order to establish the application areas of HSC in mechanical engineering, it is extremely important to characterize the thermal and mechanical behaviour of the material and to determine the characteristic values, which are necessary for the FE-calculations of the machine elements. Due tolack of standards on HSC materials, the thermal and mechanical tests must be governed by the appropriate standards for polymer concrete and plastic materials. The German Standards DIN 51290 prescribe that the minimum dimensions of the sample shouldnt be smaller than three times the maximum grain size of the used filler. The result is that the preferred sample geometry based on plastic standards must be modified to apply to HSC. Thermoelastic properties of hollow sphere composites are studied based on the uniform matrixfield concept proposed here. Some connections between local thermal and mechanical fields produced by certain homogeneous boundary conditions are derived, and furthermore, exact relations are also obtained between the effective thermoelastic properties of the composites. For a macroscopically isotropic composite with a certain ratio of the outer radius to the inner radius, it is found that the effective bulk modulus and the linear coefficient of thermal expansion can be exactly determined, if the thermal expansion coefficient of the matrix and that of the sphere are the same Hollow sphere structures (HSS) are novel lightweight materials within the group of cellular metals (such as metal foams) which are characterised by high specific stiffness, the ability to absorb high amounts of energy at a relatively low stress levels, potential for noise control, vibration damping and thermal insulation. Combination of these different properties opens a wide field of potential multifunctional applications e.g. in automotive or aerospace industry.

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

CHAPTER IV THERMAL PROPERTIES

Investigations were carried out to obtain the thermal behavior and hardening of epoxy resins and HSC usingdifferential scanning calorimeters (DSC 200). The obtained typical temperatures are: glass transition temperature (Tg), cured temperature (Tcure), temperature at the beginning of thermal degradation (Tox). The obtained temperatures and their effects on residual reaction heat of the remaining reactants (_Hr) are shown in Fig. 3. It can be stated that the thermal behaviour of HSC is mainly governed by the epoxy resin used.

Fig. 3.DSC-scan of 11.1 mg epoxy resin Ebalta (1) and 12.3 mg HSC consist of corundum and Fillite (2) with heating rate of 20 K/min in air.

The linear thermal expansion coefficient for Tg( 1) and linear thermal expansion coefficient over Tg( 2) can bemeasured using thermomechanical analysis (TMA). Fig. 4 demonstrates, that with increased percentage volume offillers from 65% (Sample 2) to 78% (Sample 3) the 1-and 2-values will be smaller, which is attributable to thesmaller thermal expansion values of the 78% HSC materialused in the research.

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

Fig. 4.TMA-curves of epoxy resin and HSC-variants with different resin volume fractions. In order to minimise the thermal distortion of machine tool elements it is important to know the 1-values. Table 1includes the 1-, Tg and 2-values for some HSC variants. These values depend on the base materials used and can be determined from the following equations = vi i wherevi is the volumetric percentage, i the thermal expansion coefficient.
SAMPLE COMPOSITION 1(10^6 K^1) 1 2 3 4 5 Only epoxy resin Ebalta 65 vol.% Fillite + corundum 78 vol.% Fillite + corundum 78 vol.% Fillite 78 vol.% corundum 02mm 70.9 33.1 22.3 34.5 23.4 60 51.5 52.4 62.6 51.3 Tg ( C) 2(10^6 K^1) 105.3 64.1 51.9 49.1 30.8 CURING TIME (DAYS) 30 28 30 21 19

Table 1 1-Values of epoxy resin and HSC

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010 The viand i values of the components are normally available, but in this case the thermal expansion coefficientof the fillers and the influences of the encapsulated gas in HSC on 1 are unknown. However, the -value of the corundum ( -Al2O3) is 9.5 10^6 K^1. The calculated -value of epoxy resin is 70 10^6 K^1. The calculated 1-value of Sample 5 is 22.8 10^6 K^1, which agrees well with the experimentally obtained value of 23.410^6 K^1. The dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) investigations of three-point-bending-samples of epoxy resin (a) and of HSC-Sample 3 (b) are shown in Fig. 5. At higher frequencies the Tg moves to higher temperature values and due to the sensitivity of the DMA-methods two Tg points are found for the semi-cured samples. At the start of the Tg area the microbrown movements takes place followed by an entropy elastic state, where the dependence of the elastic modulus on the temperature is less significant. It is notable that the fillers improve the stiffness (E_) of Sample 3 (HSC) in comparison to Sample 1 (epoxy resin).

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

Fig. 5.Elastic bending modulus (E), loss modulus (E) and log decrement (D) of epoxy resin (Sample 1) (a) and HSC (Sample 3) of (b).

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

CHAPTER V MECHANICAL PROPERTIES

The elasticity modulus (E) of epoxy resin Ebalta 120/TL (EP) and HSC were obtained from mechanical tests and areshown in Table 2. The mechanical properties of epoxy resin and HSCsamples are shown in Table 2, along with steel (St), glass fibre (GF) and carbon fibre (CF) materials for purpose of comparison. The density ( ) of materials indicates that HSC are lightweight materials. The ratio of stiffness (E) to density is an important parameter for material selection. To compare the compression strength of two bars of equal dimension but different materials the equation is simplified to 3E/g . It is clear from the table that HSC-Samples 24 have higher compression modulus than either steel or glass fibre . If GF or CF is manufactured as laminate, then its mechanical properties becomes much smaller. A clear disadvantage of CF is its anisotropy, whereas HSC is isotropic in all directions. VALUE EP, SAMPLE 1 SAMPL E 2 (g/cm3) 1.15 0.95 0.9 0.65 1.16 7.8 2.6 1.78 SAMPLE 3 SAMPLE 4 SAMPLE 5 HSC Steel GF CF

E (GPa)

3.5

7.8

6.8

4.1

8.7

210

73

235

3 E/g( 3(Mpa) cm3/g)

13.2

21.4

21

24.6

18.7

7.6

16

34.5

Table 2

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010

Density and Youngs modulus (E) of epoxy resin and HSC in comparison to steel (St), glass fibre (GF) or carbon fibre (CF)

Fig. 6 shows the tensile strength ( t) and specific strength of epoxy resin and HSC-Samples 25. The tensile test specimen was 250mmin length, 10mmin thickness and 25mmin width. The tensile strength tests were carried out with a speed of 5 mm/min according to DIN EN ISO 5273. The specific strength of Sample 3 (Fillite and corundum 0.51 mm) and Sample 4 (Fillite) are higher than that of epoxy resin. The result is, than using the same mass of material, a higher volume of component can be made when using Samples 24, and it withstands the same tensile strength as a component made from Sample 1.

Fig. 6.Tensile strength and specific strength of EP (Sample 1) and HSC (Samples 25).

Compression tests were conducted with test pieces having a length of 100 mm, a thickness of 30mm and a width of30 mm. The speed of compression tests was 1 mm/min. The compressive stressstrain curves of selected HSC-variants are presented in Fig. 7. The symbols of circle, square, etc.mark the mean values of the compressive strength ( c) andthe corresponding mean values of compression-strain ofSamples 510 of each variant. The c-values in Fig. 7 aregreater than that of t in Fig. 6 because in compression tests the pores will be closed and they stop the propagation of thecracks. Samples 4 and 5 in Fig. 7 show that two typical stagesoccur during 11 SNGCE Kadayiruppu

Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010 deformation in the course of compression testof cellular solids such as polymer foams or metal foams. Following an almost linear-elastic behaviour at lowstrains the curve shows a long plateau with almost constantload, but in comparison to the another cellular solids the HSCmaterial is superior in withstanding compression. Sample 4filled with the smaller filler type Fillite behaves better undercompression than the filled with corundum, because Sample 5 has a higher porosity. Samples 2 and 3 have high packing density thus providing higher compressive strength values. The increase in the volumetric percentage of resin in Sample 2 improves the c-values. The smaller the size of the spheres the more marked the plateau areas are, as in this case the crack propagation can be rapidly stopped by impediments (spheres or pores). This explains why the samples filled with smaller particles cracks appear to be diagonal, while samples filled with greater fillers develop transversal cracking develops. It has to be noted that adhesion bonds between fillers and binders are of paramount importance. If the stiffness of the spheres is higher than the stiffness of the resin then cracking starts in the resin and vice-versa.

Fig. 7.Typical compressive stressstrain curves of HSC variants and test samples after compression test.

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The damage propagation can be explained using the scanning electron micrograph (SEM) images of the fracture surfaces of Samples 3, 4 and 5 in Fig. 8. The Fillite spheres of Sample 4 in Fig. 8a are broken. Due to the differentwall thickness of the ceramic hollow spheres of Sample 5 in Fig. 8b, the spheres are broken at different levels. Thespace between the greater corundum spheres of Sample 5 are greater than the space between the smaller Fillite spheres of Sample 5. A better packing density of the fillers is shown in Fig. 8c, where Sample 3 is filled with different grain size of spheres of known volumetric percentage fraction, thus causing to improve mechanical properties of Sample 3 in comparison to Samples 4 or 5.

Fig. 8. SEM images of fracture surfaces among bending HSC-samples.

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010 Fig. 9.Bending strength values for epoxy resin, HSC with and without carbon fibre or glass fibre. The bending stress in Fig. 9 was determined using three-point-bending samples with following dimensions: 240mm length, 20mm width and 12mm height, according to the DIN EN ISO 178, with a proof-speed of 4.8 mm/min. The bending strength values of HSC are smaller than that of epoxy resin. Some HSC variants at the opposite side of the applied force were reinforced with carbon or glass fibre to improve tensile properties. Sample 3 is a mixture of ceramic and aluminium silicate hollow spheres and presents better mechanical propertiesthan Samples 4 or 5, which were filled with a single filler type. The thermal expansion coefficient of Sample 3 issmaller in comparison to Sample 2 or 4. Sample 3 was selected as construction material for machine tool components and other engineering parts.

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CHAPTER VI APPLICATION OF HSC IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

On the research programme a number of machine elements, such as jigs of milling tables and robot arms forSCARA Adept robots were developed. These components were successfully tested and the application of HSC materials in mechanical engineering was demonstrated. The finite element program COSAR provided indications for the need of design changes regarding the direction of carbon fibre reinforcements and the aluminium connection elements. The models in Fig. 10 were loaded with 1000MPa bending force and the developed stresses remained below acceptable limit. Based on the results obtained, two robot arms were made from HSC reinforced with carbon fibre or aluminium alloys bars. These robot arms were 10 and 25% lighter in weight than as the original aluminium alloy arms.

Fig. 10.Finite element models and robot arms made from aluminium alloy (a) and HSC (b).

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010 A milling machine table was successfully developed from HSC to replace a steel table. The developed HSC tablewas designed with reinforcing steel elements and carbon fibre laminates to withstand the typical tensile strengths. The achieved mass reduction is between 30 and 80%, thus enhancing dynamic characteristics. The damping properties of the HSC table are superior to that of cast iron table, which is partly attributed to the ply structure as shown in Fig. 11

Fig. 11.Table of a milling machine made from HSC, steel plate and carbon laminates.

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CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION

Lightweight is a major trend in machine tool design to ensure higher speed and higher acceleration of elements, which results from state-of-the-art technology, such as the new linear drive and the control system. Research is being carried out in institutes worldwide into lightweight construction by either design and/or choice of material. One type of advanced lightweight engineering material to reduce the mass of the moving parts of machine tools is hollow-sphere composites. Investigations of their thermal and mechanical properties show the superior quality of HSCs compared with alternative materials It can be stated that HSC materials combined with metal or fibre reinforcements promise a successful alternative to light metals or metal foams. In this research a number of machine building parts with good dimensional accuracy have been produced and tested with good results. The spherical form of the hollow materials provided a considerably smoother surface than that of fibrous or irregular fillers and the resin consumption was significantly reduced. The application of HSC materials is advantageous for the user because of the low material and production costs. The excellent vibration and damping properties coupled with very low heat conductivity and resultant heat distortion predestines the HSC materials to be used successfully in a variety of engineering areas. The chemical resistance and the ease of recycling are further advantages of this material by changing the composition of the matrix material and the volume.

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Lightweight hollow sphere composite(HSC) materials 2010 CHAPTER VIII REFERENCES [1] S. Klaeger, E. Baumeister, Untersuchung von HohlkugelkompositalsLeichtbauwerkstoff. InternationaleFachtagung Polymerwerktsoffe,Halle, Saale, 2001. [2] P. Menz, MaschinenbaugruppenausKompositmaterial, Dt-Patent No. 1 952 367 (1996). [3] N.N., Information from companies Omya and Treibacher, 2000. [4] DIN 52190: Prfung von Reaktionsharzbeton, Teil 3. PrfunggesonderthergestellterProbekrper, 1991. [5] E.A. Turi, Thermal Characterisation of Polymeric Materials, vol. 2, Brooklyn, 1997. [6] T.A. Osswald, G. Menges, Materials Science of Polymers for Engineers, Hanser Publishers, Munich, 1995. [7] H. Salmang, H. Scholze, Keramik. Teil 1.AllgemeineGrundlagen und wichtigeEigenschaften.Sechste, verbesserte und erweiterteAuflage,Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1982. [8] S. Knappe, DMA-measurement from Netsch company, unpublished, 2000. [9] B. Knauer, A. Wende, Konstruktionstechnik und Leichtbau. MethodikWerkstoff GestaltungBemessung, Berlin, 1988. [10] N.N., R&G Faserverbundwerkstoffe GmbH, Waldenbuch, 2002. [11] L.J. Gibson, M.F. Ashby, Cellular Solids, Structure and Properties, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1997. [12] H.-P. Degischer, B. Kriszt, Handbook of Cellular Metals, Production, Processing, Applications, WileyVCH, Weinheim, 2002. [13] E. Baumeister, Hollow-spheres-compositesas new lightweight materials for mechanical engineering, in: Werkstoffwoche- PartnerschaftGbR (Ed.), in: Proceedings of the MATERIALS WEEK 2002. Werkstoff-InformationsgesselschaftmbH, Frankfurt, 2003. [14] Z. Bako, Polymer Concrete and Hollow Sphere Composites for Manufacturing of Machine Tools, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Magdeburg and University of Miskolc, 2000. [15] L. Bhrend, LeichtbauimMaschinenbauamBesipiel der Konstruktion und experimentellenUntersuchungeinesFrsmaschinetischesausHohlkugelkomposit, Guericke-University, Magdeburg, 1998. Otto-von-

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