Characterization of vinyl ester bio-resin for core material sandwich panel construction of ship structure application: Effect of palm oil and sesame oil

Abstract

Material development in ship structure has currently made rapid progress. One of the advanced materials used in ship construction is a sandwich panel. This study developed the core sandwich based on vinyl ester polymer mixed with vegetable oil: Palm oil (VE-PO) and sesame oil (VE-SO) using the vacuum casting process. The composition of vegetable oil was 4 wt% of total weight. The polymer was characterized by visual observation, spectroscopy, and physical testing. Visual observation showed that VE without vegetable oil was transparent, while VE with vegetable oil was opaque. As summarized, the result of FTIR showed that palm oil had functional groups C = O at the frequencies of 1725.46 cm-1 and sesame oil at 1724.93 cm-1 which showed unsaturated properties. Hardness test showed that VE-PO hardness was 67 shore D, VE-SO hardness was 66 shore D. Tensile test showed that VE-PO had a tensile strength of 46 MPa and VE-SO had a tensile strength of 45 MPa. The density test showed that VE-PO had a value of 1,095 g/cm3, VE-SO had a value of 1,028 g/cm3. Nevertheless, the bio-resin property developed in this study met the specified Lloyd's Register Standard for marine applications.