The interest on sandwich composite structures is increasing due to their goodmechanical properties, the ability to tailor the sandwich structure to each component,and good formability. These materials are used in aerospace, wind energy andautomotive industries, where minimising the weight of vehicle or components is veryimportant. The increasing use of polymer foams in composite structures hasencouraged the polymer industry to improve the mechanical properties of the corematerials, by redesigning the materials and applying different types of surfacefinishing.In this research, the effect of surface finishing options on the impact behaviour ofsandwich composite structures was investigated by performing low velocity dropweight impact tests, because impact is often critical in this kind of components. Thesandwich composites used had a PVC polymer foam core with various surfacefinishing options (plain, flexi cut, knife cut, saw cut and mini cut), and weremanufactured with Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) skins through ResinInfusion under Flexible Tooling (RIFT). After the impact test, the delaminated areas atthe back face of the samples with different finishes were measured and comparedagainst each other. The surface finishing options affected the impact behaviour of thesandwich composite structure, and increased the ductility and energy-absorptioncapacity of the structure.
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