Development of Recycled PET Core Materials for the Manufacturing of Fiber Reinforced Polymeric Composites in Sandwich Form

Abstract In this study, the structural performance of recycled PET foams that are developed as a core material from PET wastes from core‐kit manufacturing process is studied. Compression molding under heat method is used to manufacture recycled PET cores by using waste PET foam powders. Unsaturated polyester resin is used as a binder to collect and bond PET powders to get a compact form. Binder is mixed with waste PET powder and the blend is compressed under the heat with a pressure in a mold. The various powder/binder mixing ratios as 50/50, 60/40, and 78/22 are used to see effect of mixing ratio on density and flexural strength. Moreover, waste short glass fibers are added to mixture to increase strength of core material. The results reveal that flexural strength and density decreases with the increasing of powder content in mixing. In addition, it is noticed that sandwich composite structure prepared with recycled cores shows better bending and shear properties than those of sandwich composites prepared with virgin foam core materials. The results presented here may serve as utilization of foam core wastes from core‐kit manufacturing process by recycling via compression molding applications.