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This paper aims at comparing the mechanical behaviour of different composite materials constituted of twill flax and glass fabrics-reinforced liquid thermoplastic and thermoset resins. The main objective is to study the possibility of thermoplastic to replace thermoset matrix, and flax fibre to replace glass fibre. For this purpose, the studied composites were fabricated using the vacuum infusion technique. Next, they were subjected to several monotonic and load-unload tensile tests in order to determine their mechanical properties and their evolution with damage. Two elastic damage and elastic-plastic damage models were also considered to predict their behaviour. The obtained results show that the used thermoplastic resin could constitute an interesting alternative to the thermoset resin for the vacuum infusion process. Furthermore, the flax fibre composites, in particular those based on the thermoplastic resin, present specific tensile moduli close to those of glass composites.

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Natural fibre-reinforced biopolymer composites are of special interest because they are entirely bioresourced, recyclable and biodegradable. Poly(lactic acid) (PLA), poly(hydroxybutyrate- co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) and poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) are among the most known environment-friendly biodegradable thermoplastics. Unfortunately, they present unbalanced mechanical characteristics when they are taken separately. The aim of this work is to overcome this problem using a blending process accompanied with fibre reinforcement. For this purpose, entirely biodegradable composite materials were fabricated and characterized. These biocomposites are based on two different ternary PLA/PHBV/PBS blends reinforced with twill flax fabrics and fabricated using extrusion and film-stacking techniques. Monotonic and cyclic load–unload tensile tests followed by acoustic emission and scanning electron microscopy observations were performed. In particular, the obtained biocomposites present interesting mechanical properties with a tensile modulus of 20 GPa and an ultimate tensile strength of 110 MPa.