Comparison of two different methods for producing hollow macrospheres with carbon fiber reinforced composite skin used in syntactic foams

The present study focuses on the preparation and characterization of carbon fiber reinforced hollow epoxy macrospheres (CFR‐HEMs) produced by “Rolling Ball” method and “Electrostatic Fiber Flocking” method when the expanded polystyrene (EPS) beads were served as sacrificial templates. Three‐phase epoxy syntactic foam (ESF) filled with the CFR‐HEMs and hollow glass microspheres (HGMs) were also studied. The CFR‐HEMs made by “Electrostatic Fiber Flocking” method have higher fiber volume fraction, which is 70.1% and the fibers are regularly arranged. By contrast, the CFR‐HEMs made by the “rolling ball” method have a lower average fiber volume fraction, which is 55.5% and the fibers are randomly arranged. The test results show that the ESF filled with HEMs prepared by “Electrostatic Fiber Flocking” method has higher density and compressive property than the ESF filled with HEMs prepared by “Rolling Ball” method POLYM. COMPOS., 40:E1075–E1083, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers