Mechanical properties comparison of autochthonous natural fibers reinforced polyester composites: flax and hemp
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abstract
Nowadays, the climate changing caused by the increasing of pollution and the need of
reduce the carbon footprint brings the growing use of autochthonous materials. On the
other hand, there are new European Community directives that require the increased use
of recyclable materials and the natural fibres are excellent candidates for this role.
However, only in last few years this subject has been studied for technical applications
[1]. This work intends to add a small contribution to better characterize composites with
some of these natural fibres. For that reason, is used the Taguchi method [2] to
characterize composites of natural fibers, namely the hemp and flax fibres which will be
used individually and mixed each other. The factors that will be controlled are, beyond
the type of fibres, the interfacial strength, the humidity in the fibres and the fibre weight
fraction. To implement the experimental tests will be used the method of design of
experiments developed by Taguchi. In this case, is used the L9 orthogonal array because
is more suitable for the number of factors and levels analysed. So, for the interface
strength improvement is used the alkali–silane treatment and are applied three different
concentrations that are 0%, 2% and 5%. The humidity in the fibres is a very difficult
parameter to control and for this reason will be used different ranges which will be
obtained by controlling the drying time. Finally, will be used different values of fibre
weight fraction to determine its influence in the tensile strength of the composite.
Considering the number of factors to be controlled and the number of levels, the data
that is analyzed is the tensile properties. The influence of each factor in the composite
performance will determined using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) as well as the
optimal factors and levels combination to obtain the highest values of tensile strength.
