Waste tires constitute a major global environmental challenge due to their environmental persistence, toxic pollutant release, fire hazards, and high landfill space requirements, necessitating focused research on sustainable reduction and utilization approaches. This work presents a promising route for the reduction of accumulated waste tires through their conversion into value-added composite materials, achieved by the development of rubber particles–reinforced epoxy cores and corresponding sandwich structures with hemp fabric/epoxy skins. Epoxy composite cores containing rubber particles at weight fractions of 0, 1, 3, 5, and 7 wt.% were fabricated and employed as the core material in sandwich structures with hemp fabric/epoxy laminates as the face sheets. Flexural behavior of both the composite cores and sandwich specimens was evaluated, and the resulting fracture surfaces were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to elucidate the damage mechanisms. The experimental outcomes indicate that flexural performance in both material systems is governed by rubber particle loading, with maximum mechanical efficiency attained at an optimal filler content. Flexural response of rubber-modified epoxy cores and natural fiber sandwich composites was found to be strongly dependent on filler dispersion and microstructural integrity.
Bhagwat et al. (Fri,) studied this question.