Sustainable sandwich composite structures made from aluminium sheets and disposed bottle caps

This work describes the development of a sustainable and low-cost sandwich composite structure made from aluminium skins and bonded to a tubular core with epoxy resin. The core is made from disposed plastic bottle caps. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been performed to determine the significance of the orientation of the bottle caps in the core, the use and type of adhesive over the bulk density and the mechanical properties of the sandwich panels. The results show that a core topology made from an alternated orientation of the bottle caps provides an enhancement of the resistance in the face skins and the core. The use of the epoxy adhesive between adjacent bottle caps also gives an increase of the maximum resistance of the panel.