0000000000394019
AUTHOR
E. Poriķe
Strength and Damage of Elementary Flax Fibers Extracted from Tow and Long Line Flax
Flax fibers possess high specific strength and stiffness, and thus are competitive in terms of mechanical properties with traditional reinforcing fibers used in polymer-matrix composite materials. For environmental and economical benefit, it would be preferable to apply nontextile grade fibers in composites provided their mechanical characteristics are acceptable. Elementary fibers have been extracted from long line flax, used as high-quality raw material for textile industry, and flax tow, and their strength distribution and damage level determined. It is shown that the elementary flax fibers coming from short flax fiber are not inferior to those of textile-quality flax in terms of streng…
The effect of mechanical defects on the strength distribution of elementary flax fibres
Flax fibres are finding non-traditional applications as reinforcement of composite materials. The mechanical properties of fibres are affected by the natural variability in plant as well as the damage accumulated during processing, and thus have considerable variability that necessitates statistical treatment of fibre characteristics. The strength distribution of elementary flax fibres has been determined at several fibre lengths by standard tensile tests, and the amount of kink bands in the fibres evaluated by optical microscopy. Strength distribution function, based on the assumption that the presence of kink bands limits fibre strength, is derived and found to provide reasonable agreemen…
Modeling strength scatter of elementary flax fibers: The effect of mechanical damage and geometrical characteristics
Elementary bast fibers, apart from acceptable specific mechanical properties, possess a marked variability in geometrical and damage characteristics, which affects their axial tensile strength. A strength distribution function is derived that allows for the effect of kink bands and the scatter of fiber diameter. The distribution function is validated by applying it to the experimental strength data of both intact, carefully hand-decorticated, and damaged elementary flax fibers obtained by standard processing. The results suggest that the presence of kink bands is a limiting factor for the fiber strength.
Ultimate strain and deformability of elementary flax fibres
Flax fibres possess high specific strength and stiffness, and thus are competitive in terms of mechanical properties with the traditional reinforcing fibres used in polymer-matrix composite materials. The mechanical properties of fibres have considerable variability that needs to be characterized and allowed for in the analysis of mechanical response of composites. In this study, the distribution of ultimate strain of elementary flax fibres and its dependence on gauge length is considered. The applicability of the modified Weibull distribution, used for fibre strength, to fibre ultimate strain is evaluated. A simplified relation of ultimate strain and fibre strength distributions is propos…