Search results for "Flax"
showing 10 items of 60 documents
Experimental design of the bearing performances of flax fiber reinforced epoxy composites by a failure map
2018
Abstract This paper represents the first effort aimed to the investigation of the pin/hole contact stress and failure mechanisms of epoxy composites reinforced with woven flax fabrics, underwent to tensile bearing tests. In particular, the maximum loads and failure modes are evaluated at varying the laminate geometrical configuration. In order to optimize the use of polymer composites reinforced with flax fibers in structural applications, an experimental failure map, identifying main failure modes of mechanically fastened joints, is obtained as function of hole diameter, distance of the hole from the free edge of the laminate and laminate width. Moreover, a theoretical approach based on th…
Bearing strength and failure behavior of pinned hybrid glass-flax composite laminates
2018
Abstract The aim of the present work is to evaluate the influence of external layers of glass woven fabric on the pin-hole strength of flax/epoxy laminates. Single lap bearing tests were carried out to evaluate the fastened joint performances depending on laminate stacking sequence. In order to better identify the mechanical behavior of the hybrid laminate, full glass and flax laminates were also compared. In particular, bearing stress and failure mechanisms were investigated at varying joint geometry. Furthermore, an experimental failure map, clustering main failure modes of pinned hybrid composite laminate, was used to better clarify the relationship between mechanical failure and geometr…
Evolution of the bearing failure map of pinned flax composite laminates aged in marine environment
2020
Abstract Aim of the present paper is to evaluate how the bearing behavior of pinned flax composites can be influenced by their exposition to critical environment such as marine one. To this scope, flax fibers/epoxy pinned laminate was exposed up to 60 days to salt-fog environment, according to ASTM B 117 standard. In particular, samples having different hole diameter (D), laminate width (W), and hole center to laminate free edge distance (E) have been tested under single lap bearing tests at varying the aging exposition time. Following this procedure, an experimental 2D failure map clustering main failure modes was created by placing the experimental results in the plane E/D versus W/D rati…
Impact behaviour of flax/epoxy composite plates
2015
This paper presents an experimental investigation of the impact behaviour of flax/epoxy composite plates submitted to low-velocity transverse impact. Low energy drop-weight impact tests have been performed on two types of quasi-isotropic flax/epoxy composites, rectangularly shaped with edges lengths of 142 mm × 94 mm and 2.85 mm thick. Residual properties have been assessed by compression after impact tests. A detailed description of damage development, especially the increase of the rear face crack with respect to the impact energy is given by the microscopic observation. The influence of impact damage on the residual strength is described. A loss of 15%–30% in compression resistance was n…
A simplified predictive approach to assess the mechanical behavior of pinned hybrid composites aged in salt-fog environment
2020
Abstract Aim of this paper is to assess the predictive capabilities of a simplified theoretical approach on the failure load of aged pinned hybrid composites. In particular, the mechanical performances of glass-flax hybrid epoxy laminates exposed to salt spray fog environment, were used as input data in order to address the analytical model. Preliminarily, the relationship among mechanical performances, failure mechanisms, joint geometry and ageing time, was evaluated by double-lap joint tests on pinned samples at varying joint geometry and ageing time. The bearing and shear out limit stress of samples aged for 60 days under the salt-fog environment underwent a reduction of about 20% compar…
A comparative study of fatigue behaviour of flax/epoxy and glass/epoxy composites
2012
Experimental investigations on flax and glass fabrics reinforced epoxy specimens, i.e. FFRE and GFRE, submitted to fatigue tests are presented in this paper. Samples having [0/90]3S and [±45]3S stacking sequences, with similar fibre volume fractions have been tested under tension–tension fatigue loading. The specific stress-number of cycles to failure (S–N) curves, show that for the [0/90]3S specimens, FFRE have lower fatigue endurance than GFRE, but the [±45]3S FFRE specimens offer better specific fatigue endurance than similar GFRE, in the studied life range (<2 × 10^6). Overall, the three-stage stiffness degradation is observed in all cases except for [0/90]3S FFRE specimens, which prese…
Influence of sodium bicarbonate treatment on the aging resistance of natural fiber reinforced polymer composites under marine environment
2019
Abstract Aim of the current study is to investigate how an innovative and eco-friendly chemical treatment based on sodium bicarbonate solution (10 wt%) can improve the aging resistance in marine environment of epoxy based composites, reinforced with flax and jute fibers. To this scope, treated and untreated fiber reinforced composites were manufactured through vacuum infusion technique. The resulting composites were then exposed to salt-fog spray conditions up to 60 days, according to ASTM B117 standard. The assessment of their durability was made by means of tensile, flexural quasi-static tests and Charpy impact tests. Furthermore, the water uptake evolution of each composite was monitored…
Pinned hybrid glass-flax composite laminates aged in salt-fog environment: Mechanical durability
2019
The aim of the present paper is to study the mechanical performance evolution of pinned hybrid glass-flax composite laminates under environment aging conditions. Hybrid glass-flax fibers/epoxy pinned laminates were exposed to salt-spray fog environmental conditions up to 60 days. With the purpose of assessing the relationship between mechanical performances and failure mechanisms at increasing aging time, single lap joints at varying joint geometry (i.e., hole diameter D and hole distance E from free edge) were characterized after 0 days (i.e., unaged samples), 30 days, and 60 days of salt-fog exposition. Based on this approach, the property&ndash
Effect of glass fiber hybridization on the durability in salt-fog environment of pinned flax composites
2021
The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the effect of the hybridization with external layers of glass fibers on the durability of flax fiber reinforced composites in severe aging conditions. To this scope, full glass, full flax and hybrid glass–flax pinned laminates were exposed to a salt-fog environment for up to 60 days. Double-lap pinned joint tests were performed to assess the pin-hole joints performances at varying the laminate stacking sequence. In order to better discriminate the relationship between the mechanical behavior and the fracture mechanisms of joints at increasing the aging time, different geometries (i.e., by varying both the hole diameter D and the free edge distance…
An Innovative Treatment Based on Sodium Citrate for Improving the Mechanical Performances of Flax Fiber Reinforced Composites
2021
The goal of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of a cost-effective and eco-friendly treatment based on the use of sodium citrate (Na3C6H5O7) on the mechanical properties of flax fiber reinforced composites. To this scope, flax fibers were soaked in mildly alkaline solutions of the sodium salt at different weight concentration (i.e., 5%, 10% and 20%) for 120 h at 25 °C. The modifications on fibers surface induced by the proposed treatment were evaluated through Fourier transform infrared analysis (FTIR), whereas scanning electron microscope (SEM) and helium pycnometer were used to obtain useful information about composites morphology. The effect of the concentration of the treating …