Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

DOI 10.1007/s10443-008-9058-2

Windsurf-Board Sandwich Panels

Under Static Indentation
C. Borsellino & L. Calabrese & G. Di Bella

Received: 8 August 2007 / Accepted: 6 May 2008 /

Published online: 27 May 2008
# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract In recent years composite materials have found application in several fields as
sport and sea transportation, where the incidence of the cost of materials is not significant
compared with the required high mechanical performances. As a matter of fact, in some
sports the whole equipment is nowadays realized in composite materials (i.e. windsurf
boards, snowboards). The aim of the present work is to evaluate the mechanical
performance of some sandwich structures produced by vacuum bagging technology for
the windsurf boards production. The behaviour of the structures is tested under static
indentation conditions; different fibres materials, for the skins, and different polystyrene
foams, for the core, have been taken into account. In particular both the effect of the kind of
fibre (glass, carbon and kevlar fibres) and the effect of the polystyrene cells size (and its
density) have been investigated. The purpose was to obtain a stiff structure able to bear
localized loads. Additionally, the effects induced on the indentation resistance by both the
speed and the diameter of pin have been analysed.
Keywords Sandwich . Expanded polystyrene . Indentation

1 Introduction
In this last years the increasing efforts, aimed to find out structures characterized by both
reduced weight and better mechanical performances, has led to the development of
C. Borsellino
Department of Ingegneria Civile, Messina University, Messina, Italy
e-mail: c.borsellino@ingegneria.unime.it
L. Calabrese
Department of Chimica Industriale e Ingegneria dei Materiali, Messina University, Messina, Italy
e-mail: calabrese@ingegneria.unime.it
G. Di Bella (*)
Department of Tecnologia Meccanica Produzione e Ingegneria Gestionale, Palermo University,
Palermo, Italy
e-mail: gdibella@ingegneria.unime.it

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Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

composite sandwich structures mainly in land and sea transportation and recreation [14].
Nowadays, in fact, scientific research is oriented to create materials with particular features,
suitable for extreme sports.
A good example is given from windsurf boards where the design is directed to develop
more and more stiff and rigid structures using valuable and strong materials. The better
structure for the construction of windsurf boards is the composite sandwich. This last is
composed by two thin, high-stiffness and strength skins and a thick soft core.
In such structure the skins are able to carry flexural loads while the core the shear ones.
In windsurf boards this performances are obtained by using high resistance expensive
materials for the skins (carbon, kevlar, glass) and poor ones for the core (mainly
polystyrene foam). Due to such structural complexity, the behaviour of composite materials
is strictly dependent on: load conditions, materials, components mechanical characteristics
and their arrangement in the stacking sequence of the sandwich panel. For such reason the
prediction of composite materials mechanical behaviour is difficult to perform.
From the literature it is well known that, under the load application, several failure
mechanisms can occur; for example, in the three point bending test, the fracture can take place
as a consequence of deformation, rupture or collapse of the skin or as a consequence of core
shear or compression or, furthermore, for delamination at the skin/core interface [5, 6].
The local indentation is a less frequent failure mode, but really important to take into
account [7] because local stresses can occasionally occur in working conditions, for
example due to a collision [812]. Such events are intentionally neglected in engineering
design. Therefore, to investigate on local indentation phenomenon, different sandwich
structures, used in windsurf boards construction, have been realised using the vacuum
bagging technology. The sandwiches were characterised by a middle light core of expanded
polystyrene externally covered by high density PVC foam. Three kind of polystyrenes were
employed with different densities and different cells sizes; the aim was to investigate how
the micro-structure can influence the mechanical response of the laminate. Also the fibres
of the skin affect the sandwich behaviour in terms of both maximum supported load and
maximum reached strain; so three different materials (glass, carbon and kevlar) were used
to realize the skins of the sandwiches. Several indentation tests, with a cylindrical pin, have
been performed on the obtained samples, at varying both indenter speeds, in a static range,
and diameters. The tests have allowed the evaluation of both the failure mechanisms and
the limit conditions.

2 Experimental Procedure
2.1 Materials
The sandwiches beam faces were produced with different woven fibres (carbon, glass,
kevlar). A PX-420 epoxy resin combined with the hardener 128, both supplied by
Prochima, were used as matrix. Polystyrene and PVC foams were used together as core. In
particular three different type of polystyrene foams were used: the first with density 15 kg/m3
(in the following called polystyrene 15), the other two with density 20 kg/m3 and different
bead dimensions, called respectively polystyrene 20A and 20B, at increasing bead
dimensions (1.8 mm for polystyrene 20A and 3.3 mm for polystyrene 20B). The sandwich
structure, 20500500 mm, fabricated by vacuum bagging technique, is symmetrical. The
stacking sequence of one skin is shown in Fig. 1. The fibre contents in skins has been
estimated to be 45% in volume for all kind of sandwiches. It has been experimentally

Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

77

Fig. 1 Scheme of stacking sequence of the upper skin of the

sandwich structure and layers
thicknesses

2 woven fibre layers (~ 0.5 mm)

(glass, carbon or kevlar)

PVC (3 mm)
Woven glass fibre layer
(0.22 mm)

Polystyrene foam (10 mm)

evaluated by weight measurement. Detailed characteristics of the sandwiches components

are reported in Tables 1 and 2.
2.2 Indentation Test
A composite sample panel, 206060 mm, simply supported on a rigid plate was
subjected to top loading by a cylindrical indenter with a flat bottom face.
The tests were performed at varying both the indenter speed (speeds: 2, 10 and 20 mm/min)
and the indenter diameter (diameters ranged from 2 to 6 mm stepping by one). Three samples
for each kind of test were realized, since the results were almost repeatable. Mechanical testing
were realised by employing an Universal Testing Machine model LR 10K by Lloyd
Instruments equipped with a 10 kN load cell. Nine kind of sandwich panels were realised, three
for each skin material at varying the polystyrene foam. In particular, for each panel, about 54
samples were tested.
2.3 Indentation Model
The damage for a sandwich structure under static indentation test is dependent on the
support kind, the indenter shape and the skins thickness.
For a stiffly supported panel the initial failure interests the top skin. Actually, the
crushing resistance of the deformed core, that increases during the test with the foam
density, does not allow the deformation of the whole structure that would avoid local
indentation phenomena [13].
The pin geometry influences the shape of the damaged area on the sandwich. In fact,
failure can be radial for a conical indenter (a crack starts at the pin/material interface with a
Table 1 Fibres, resin and PVC properties

Thickness [mm]
Elastic modulus [MPa]
Shear modulus [MPa]
Poissons ratio
Density [kg/m3]
Weight [g/m2]

Glass fibre

Carbon fibre

Kevlar fibre

Resin

PVC

0.22
72,000
30,000
0.2
2,550
165

0.25
297,000
114,231
0.3
1,750
200

0.25
124,000
45,926
0.35
1,450
168

4,400
1,620
0.35

3
54
4.9
0.3
98

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Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

Table 2 Polystyrene foam properties [17]

Compression test

15
20A
20B

Tensile test

Shear test

Flexural test

E [MPa]

[MPa]

E [MPa]

[MPa]

G [MPa]

C [MPa]

E [MPa]

[MPa]

0.72
2.58
1.90

0.064
0.116
0.153

2.37
6.64
5.86

0.056
0.183
0.162

1.01
2.97
1.80

0.047
0.099
0.086

4.61
7.71
8.58

0.099
0.243
0.198

petals shape during the penetration) or it can be circumferential if the indenter is cylindrical/
spherical (the material under the pin undergoes compressive stress and the strain interests
the whole sample) [14].
A parameter that mainly influences the failure mechanism is the skins thickness: when
the skin is thick the fibres induced strain is low and the shear stresses around the indenter
cause the fracture; when the skin is thinner than the entire panel, the fibres induced strain is
very high and a tensile failure is observed. In this case, if the pin diameter is big, a
wrinkling phenomenon can occur when the strain reaches the failure value of the fibres; this
last consists in a local barrelling of the skin around the load application region.
By summarizing: the possible failure mechanisms can be due to tensile or shear stress. In
this work, because the studied skins are thin, it is possible to assess that the failure takes
place because of tensile stresses [15]. The tensile failure occurs when a critical strain cr,
corresponding to the elastic fracture, or a critical load Ncr, are reached on the fibres.
It is possible to evaluate the cr value by the following formula:
p
1
Pf N  2pRe A11 "cr 2"cr Kc pR2e q
where Pf is the load that produces the initial damage for a circular indenter, Re is the pin
diameter, A11 is the extensional stiffness matrix for the skin, Kc is a constant equal generally
to 1.72.5 [16] and q is the crushing resistance. Moreover a skin critical load can be
calculated by the following relationship:
Ncr  A11 "cr

when the transversal and shear midplane skin strain (respectively "0y and g 0xy ) are neglected
[15].

3 Results and Discussion

3.1 Indentation Test
A typical load/strain trend obtained from indentation tests is shown in Fig. 2, where the
strain is evaluated as the pin displacement/thickness sample ratio. The curve is obtained
from the test of a carbon skin sandwich sample. It is possible to identify three regions on
the above reported curve:
I. An elastic region;
II. The curve became non-linear and, at increasing strain, a series of small drops appears
due to the local cracks formation on the upper skin;
III. At higher strains the sample shows a residual strength until the complete perforation of
the upper skin happens.

Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

79

800

Fig. 2 Load/strain curve for a

static indentation test (carbon
skin sandwich with polystyrene
foam 20B, pin speed 2 mm/min,
pin diameter 4 mm)

III
II

Load [N]

600

400

200

Strain [%]
0
0

10

15

20

25

30

In Table 3 the mean values of the indentation experimental results are summarised;
excluding the data obtained at varying speed, because the effect of such parameter is not
significant in the investigated range. In the following the effects of each investigated
parameter on the sandwich samples resistance are analysed. This table reports also both the
critical strain and the critical load for all the samples tested, evaluated as in Eqs. 1 and 2.
3.1.1 Fibre Skin Effect
For fixed diameter and speed of the pin, the tests were performed on sandwiches with
different kind of fibre, at constant foam density. To evidence the effects induced by the skin
material three typical load/strain curves are compared in Fig. 3. The reported tests were
performed with polystyrene foam 20B, with pin diameter and pin speed equal respectively
to 3 mm and 2 mm/min; the conclusions drawn from such results are valid also for the test
obtained with different values of pin diameter and speed, as it is possible to observe from
the data summarised in Table 3.
For a sample with carbon skin the typical behaviour is observed, as the one shown in
Fig. 3. On the converse, if the skin is made of glass fibre the load/strain indentation curve
does not present the small drops in the region II, but an unique collapse. In such case, after
that the failure of the first glass layer of the top skin occurs, the other glass fibres break
down catastrophically. Because the glass fibre does not have a residual strength, the regions
II and III are not distinguishable. Finally, the kevlar skin sample shows a much regular
behaviour due to its high deformation to fracture that hinders the local cracks formation.
The kevlar samples shows failure load values almost double of carbon and glass
samples. From the same Fig. 3 it is possible to compare the failure strain of the three kind
of skins; glass fibre sample has very low failure strain values (about 12%) compared to the
one exhibited from the other samples.
Moreover the kevlar skin shows a less regular behaviour compared to the other
materials. Fig. 4 reports different load/strain curves at varying the pin diameter. At
increasing the diameter, firstly the curve slope changes and then, at about 30% strain, a
flexus point is evident. The flexus and the first point, where the load drops, are related to
the wrinkling failure that propagates on the skin plane in all samples. Unlike the other
materials, the Kevlar sample shows a different behaviour, due to the high deformation

80

Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

Table 3 Static indentation tests: experimental results

Density [kg/m3]
Carbon

15

20A

20B

Glass

15

20A

20B

Kevlar

15

20A

20B

Pin  [mm]

Pf [N]

l [mm]

[%]

cr

2
3
4
5
6
2
3
4
5
6
2
3
4
5
6
2
3
4
5
6
2
3
4
5
6
2
3
4
5
6
2
3
4
5
2
3
4
5
2
3
4
5

348.0
471.9
588.7
724.0
986.9
253.5
419.7
455.8
631.6
697.6
362.9
534.0
661.0
777.2
786.3
256.4
412.7
512.8
617.8
742.5
217.0
397.6
522.5
631.0
541.7
219.1
410.6
492.8
609.2
649.1
536.1
816.7
955.0
1,002.7
580.0
832.9
1,082.3
1,243.8
558.5
734.5
871.4
1,294.9

2.4
3.2
3.8
5.4
7.1
2.3
2.6
3.1
3.7
5.5
2.7
3.5
4.7
5.9
6.9
2.1
3.2
4.0
4.8
6.0
2.1
2.3
2.8
3.8
4.0
2.0
2.6
3.0
3.8
4.2
7.9
6.1
14.6
17.2
3.7
4.8
5.8
7.3
4.9
6.8
11.3
15.7

14.6
19.1
22.5
32.2
42.9
14.2
16.6
19.5
22.2
19.5
15.6
21.3
28.2
35.5
40.7
13.2
19.8
24.9
31.1
39.1
12.8
13.8
16.7
24.8
24.1
9.8
12.0
16.4
19.0
21.7
40.2
38.0
46.3
61.6
22.2
29.6
35.8
45.2
27.0
34.0
27.2
80.4

0.01346
0.01383
0.01206
0.01253
0.01167
0.01080
0.01026
0.00970
0.01081
0.01021
0.01383
0.01395
0.01295
0.01242
0.01127
0.02010
0.02199
0.02053
0.01956
0.01886
0.01990
0.01968
0.01959
0.02017
0.02013
0.02031
0.02139
0.01948
0.01931
0.01896
0.01743
0.01636
0.00196
0.00382
0.01811
0.01641
0.00463
0.00294
0.00225
0.00427
0.00116
0.01608

Ncr [N/mm]
336.5
345.8
301.7
313.4
292.1
270.1
256.7
248.6
270.5
255.4
345.9
348.9
324.0
310.6
282.1
202.9
222.0
207.3
197.5
190.4
186.4
200.9
198.7
197.8
203.6
203.3
205.0
215.9
196.7
194.9
456.1
471.7
432.2
405.7
379.6
422.2
466.5
443.0
442.9
467.8
429.8
420.7

reached at the sample edges (boundary effect) and the consequent failure of the sample.
Instead with a lower pin diameter, both the boundary and the wrinkling effects are less
evident and the behaviour is similar to glass and carbon skin samples. The effects of pin
diameter are discussed in detail in the Section 3.1.3.
As it is known, kevlar fibres are characterised by very low compressive strength, then
the values from indentation tests allow to exclude that the fibres failure can be due to

Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

Fig. 3 Effect of the fibres (polystyrene foam 20B, pin speed
2 mm/min, pin diameter 3 mm)

81

1000

glass
carbon
kevlar

Load [N]

800
600
400
200

Strain [%]
0
0

14

21

28

35

compressive stress. On the converse the kevlar is characterised by both high impact
resistance and deformation to break, this fact implies good resistance to localised loads. The
kevlar samples, when undergo indentation loads, show the growth of a superficial crack
along the whole sample length, due to the wrinkling failure before the complete skin
perforation. Figure 5 is a photo of the damaged area of the sandwich samples at varying the
skin material. It is evident that the failure is localised in the samples with carbon and glass
skin, instead the crack propagates through the sample edges in the kevlar ones.
3.1.2 Pin Speed Effect
For fixed pin diameter and skin material, with constant foam density, the tests were
performed with different pin speeds. As reported in Fig. 6 the experimental tests show that
speed variation does not induce evident effects on the mechanical resistance of the samples.
This result confirms a well know behaviour: the polystyrene response is independent of the
speed in static tests; only in dynamic tests the speed has an influence on its mechanical
behaviour [17], in these tests the speed changes in an almost static range and the resistance
to indentation is strongly influenced from the polystyrene. The consideration extrapolated

1400

Fig. 4 Boundary effect for

samples with kevlar skin at
varying pin diameter

pin 2 mm
pin 3 mm
pin 5 mm

1200

Load [N]

1000
800
600
400
200

Strain [%]

0
0

20

40

60

80

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Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

Fig. 5 Damaged area of the sandwich: a carbon skin; b glass skin; c kevlar skin

from the Fig. 6 can be done, as the same, for the results obtained from the other test
conditions.
3.1.3 Pin Diameter Effect
Marked differences in the mechanical performances of sandwich samples under indentation
load are evidenced at varying pin diameter. In Fig. 7 it is possible to observe how an
increase of strains and loads is reached at increasing pin diameter. Moreover the trends are
linear and this confirms the hypothesis of a tensile failure mechanism. Analogues
considerations can be done regarding the other testing condition as it is summarised in
Table 3. For the samples with kevlar skin this linear trend is less evident, as shown in
Fig. 4, due to the fibres high deformation and the wrinkling failure that interests the whole
structure inducing the boundary effect.
Figure 8 reports the critical strain for all skin materials at increasing the pin diameter.
The obtained constant mean values are well-matched with the literature ones [15]. The
critical strain values were not evaluated on the whole thickness but they were evaluated on
the skin plane; in fact the tensile fracture is strongly influenced by the A11 matrix and then
by the skin material modulus. The critical strain values increase at decreasing the skin
material stiffness. Instead the previously cited compression strain is evaluated on the whole
600

Load [N]

Fig. 6 Effect of the spin speed

(carbon skin sandwich)

2 mm/min
10 mm/min
20 mm/min

400

200

Strain [%]
0
0

10

15

20

25

Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

Fig. 7 Effect of the pin diameter
(carbon skin sandwich with
polystyrene foam 20B, pin speed
10 mm/min)

83

900

pin 2 mm
pin 3 mm
pin 4 mm
pin 5 mm
pin 6 mm
pin 7 mm

Load [N]

600

300

Strain [%]
0
0

18

27

36

45

thickness of the sandwich (skin and polystyrene) and it is influenced by the local
deformation area that depends on the indenter action.
Figure 8 is referred to a sample with a polystyrene 15 core, it evidences a low data
dispersion particularly for carbon and glass skin samples. A similar behaviour was observed
for the samples with a 20A and 20B polystyrene core.
For each material, as shown in Table 3, the critical load is independent both of the pin
diameter and of the polystyrene density. The lowest values are relative to the sandwiches with
glass skin; the critical loads increase for the samples with carbon skin and they are the highest
for kevlar skin. This behaviour can be explained by the high extensional stiffness of the carbon
fibres (for carbon skin samples) and by both the high critical strain and the good extensional
stiffness of the kevlar (for the kevlar skin samples). For this last samples at high pin diameter
the damaged area (Fig. 5c) is not well-localised around the pin but it interests the whole skin.
3.1.4 Expanded Polystyrene Foam Core Effect
Also the polystyrene foam density and the bead size induce relevant effects on the
mechanical performances of the samples under static localised compressive load. This is
Fig. 8 Critical strain/pin
diameter trend

0.025

Critical strain

0.020
0.015
0.010
glass
carbon
kevlar

0.005

Pin diameter [mm]

0.000
0

84

Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

evident from the results shown in Fig. 9 that compares the load/strain curves at varying the
foam core for each skin material. For carbon and kevlar skin samples the maximum strain
increases at decreasing the polystyrene density and, for equal densities, at increasing the
cells size. This behaviour, at increasing density, is due to the lower stress supported by the
800

Fig. 9 Effect of foam core: a

glass skin; b carbon skin; c kevlar
skin (2 mm/min pin speed and
3 mm pin diameter)

600

Load [N]

15
20A
20B

400

200

Strain [%]

0
0

800

40

15
20A
20B

600

Load [N]

20

400

200

Strain [%]
0
0
800

40

15
20A
20B

600

Load [N]

20

400

200

Strain [%]
0
0

10

20

30

40

Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

85

15 polystyrene in compression test (see Table 2, for the same impact energy a higher
deformation is required); it is also confirmed by the static characterisation of the
polystyrene foam at low deformations [17]. For equal densities it is due to the lower air
amount present in the bulk of the 20A polystyrene. In fact the air amount influences the
deformation possibility of the polystyrene and then of the whole sandwich. Also for glass
skin the strain increases at decreasing the polystyrene density but the cells sizes have not a
strong influence because the structure is much stiff and the failure occurs catastrophically
on the skin thus reducing the deformation possibility allowed by the foam core. For all
samples the failure load do not change at varying the polystyrene density that affects only
the sandwich strain.
The curves analysed in Fig. 9 are referred to the indentation test with a 4 mm pin
diameter; this last do not strongly damage the material. Glass and carbon skin samples have
shown similar behaviour for all pin diameters, but for the samples with the kevlar skin
different results were obtained. Figure 10 shows the effect of foam core, in a sandwich with
kevlar skin, for a big pin diameter. In this case both the wrinkling phenomenon and the
boundary effect are so evident that the behaviour is anomalous compared to the other
materials skin.
From Fig. 9 can be evidenced that the changing of the maximum strain of the samples is
mainly due to the different static crushing strengths of the foams. Consequently the foam
not influence the maximum failure load but only the failure strain.

4 Conclusions
Windsurf board sandwich panels were tested under static indentation conditions, analysing
the effects induced by several factors, like: speed and diameter of pin, skin fibres and
polystyrene foam used as core in the panels.
From the experimental results it is possible to draw out the following considerations:
For the specific investigated configuration the use of kevlar fibres allows to obtain
failure load values almost double of the carbon and glass samples. In addition glass
fibre samples have very low failure strain values compared to the ones of other
samples.
Fig. 10 Effect of foam core for a
sandwich with kevlar skin (pin
diameter 5 mm)

1400

15
20A
20B

1200

Load [N]

1000
800
600
400
200

Strain [%]
0
0

20

40

60

80

86

Appl Compos Mater (2008) 15:7586

The pin speed, in the investigated rangetypical of static test, does not influence the
mechanical behaviour under localised loads.
The increase of the pin diameter leads to a linear increase of the load and strain at
failure. The critical strain, evaluated by Eq. 1, is constant.
Polystyrene foam with lower density or smaller bead size shows an evident increase
of deformation to break.
The sandwich with a glass fibres skin and with a polystyrene 20A foam is much
suitable for working conditions in which localised load resistance is necessary. Even
if the sample with the kevlar skin shows a better energy absorption, the structure with
glass fibres has to be preferred due to the reduced costs compared to the others
materials and granting anyway high performances to the windsurf board. If very high
board stiffness is required, sandwiches with fully carbon skin or hybrid sandwiches
(carbon/kevlar or carbon/glass skins) could be used.

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