Fabrication and mechanical behavior of scalable lightweight high-strength cork-bamboo sandwich composites

Sustainable lightweight structural materials with dimensional stability and excellent mechanical properties are in high demand for engineering applications, but the inherent conflicts between material properties and renewability make it challenging to achieve both objectives while satisfying a wide range of service conditions. Toward this aim, a low-cost, easy-to-process, and sustainable multilayer composite structural material prepared from byproduct cork granules, bamboo bundles, and bamboo veneers was developed in this study. The long bamboo bundles and short cork granules were physically entangled in a core composite to which bamboo veneers were adhered to realize a scalable functional material with superior performance in terms of the tensile strength (TS) and dimensional stability. The tensile strength of the core composite was increased 4.8-fold by the addition of the bamboo veneer using this simple and effective method. This lightweight, low-cost, renewable, and highperformance cork-bamboo composite was shown to be suitable for numerous decorative and structural applications.

Automated summary

A low-cost, easy-to-process, and sustainable multilayer composite structural material was developed using byproduct cork granules, bamboo bundles, and bamboo veneers. The material showed superior tensile strength and dimensional stability, with the tensile strength increased 4.8-fold by the addition of bamboo veneer. This lightweight, low-cost, renewable, and high-performance cork-bamboo composite is suitable for various decorative and structural applications.