Practical Approaches of Inducing Controlled Simulated Resin Starvation Areas into Vacuum Infusion Processed Sandwich Composites Used for Characterisation of the Surface Defects and their Outcomes

Abstract Manufacturing defects in the sandwich structures have significant impact on their ultimate strength performance. It is essential to codify some criteria for the effects of such defects on the performance of the structure in order to investigate the quality of sandwich compo-sites and their load-bearing capabilities. By means of such criteria, one can predict the property degradation of the defected structure in comparison to a defect-free one, and assess whether the faulty part could be remained in the structures. Among all the potential defects in a sandwich structure they could be induced during the Vacuum Infusion Process (VIP), the dry area defect is the most significant and frequently occurring one. Hence, adequate tests should be conducted in order to examine the effect of dry area defect on the structure. For this purpose, a methodology is required for preparing the defected samples similar to the main structure. The current study is aimed at suggesting two accurate approaches to induce artificial defects in sandwich structures manufactured implementing the vacuum infusion process. These methods are used for making some defected samples and their responses are compared with those of the defect-free structures. All samples are subjected to the uniform inplane compression loading and their behaviors up to the fracture point are evaluated to assess the remaining strength. Infusion process