Fatigue behaviour of woven flax/epoxy composites

© 2015 International Committee on Composite Materials. All rights reserved. This research deals with natural fibre flax composites and hybrid composites made from flax and glass fibres. Understanding the fatigue performance of natural fibre composites is critical in order increase their current use. Current literature in this area is mostly limited to natural fibre composites with nonwoven reinforcements. This experimental research examines the tension-tension fatigue of three different woven flax/epoxy composites, for which two of them are prepreg-based and the other is manufactured using the VARTM process. Two hybrid composites containing both glass and natural fibres are also considered. The resulting fatigue performance has shown the potential natural fibres to be implemented in load-bearing applications. The results suggest that minimizing the crimp in the yarns is a major concern in order to increase the resistance to fatigue damage. The two hybrids of flax/glass/epoxy were manufactured using the same VARTM process. They were examined to see if the fatigue stability of flax fibre is extendable to its hybrids. The results show that an increase in strength is possible, while maintaining similar fatigue behaviour as the plain flax/epoxy composites. Crimp of woven fabric plays an important role in the damage mechanism and its induced intensity on the composite laminate during fatigue loading. Increase in the overall strength properties of the laminate is possible by introduction of glass fibres to the laminate. Hybridization between flax and glass fibre is only desirable in the scenario when the resulting hybrid has better specific properties.

Jaar van publicatie:2015