The present research reports thermoset nanocomposites reinforced with cotton fibres extracted from textile waste called as ‘shoddy’ and graphite oxide nanoparticles as filler. The oriented fibre web of shoddy was produced by using the carding machine and it was used as reinforcement. The thermoset epoxy composites with four different fibre volume fraction values namely 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 were developed. These composites were characterized by mechanical properties to optimize the fibre volume fraction. Further, thermoset epoxy nanocomposites were developed by incorporating graphite oxide nanoparticles as filler in four different weight percentages, namely 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 1%. All the composites were characterized for mechanical properties, dynamic mechanical properties, thermal degradation behaviour and water absorption behaviour. It has been found that the developed composites can be used in items of furniture materials and to develop some visible and non-visible automotive components.

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This research reports thermoset composites reinforced with cotton and polyester fibers (recovered from pre‐consumer textile waste). The carded web of cotton and polyester fibers and epoxy resin were used to develop the composites using the compression molding technique. The polyester/epoxy composites show average tensile and impact strength higher than cotton/epoxy composites. However, cotton/epoxy composites show average flexural strength higher than polyester/epoxy composites. The bearing strength in a pinned joint for polyester/epoxy composites is higher than cotton/epoxy composites. The equilibrium water content of polyester/epoxy composites was found much less than the corresponding cotton/epoxy composite. The cotton/epoxy and polyester/epoxy composites are thermally stable enough.

The research is focused on the design and development of woven textile-based structural hollow composites. E-Glass and high tenacity polyester multifilament yarns were used to produce various woven constructions. Yarn produced from cotton shoddy (fibers extracted from waste textiles) was used to develop hybrid preforms. In this study, unidirectional (UD), two-dimensional (2D), and three-dimensional (3D) fabric preforms were designed and developed. Further, 3D woven spacer fabric preforms with single-layer woven cross-links having four different geometrical shapes were produced. The performance of the woven cross-linked spacer structure was compared with the sandwich structure connected with the core pile yarns (SPY). Furthermore, three different types of cotton shoddy yarn-based fabric structures were developed. The first is unidirectional (UD), the second is 2D all-waste cotton fabric, and the third is a 2D hybrid fabric with waste cotton yarn in the warp and glass multifilament yarn in the weft. The UD, 2D, and 3D woven fabric-reinforced composites were produced using the vacuum-assisted resin infusion technique. The spacer woven structures were converted to composites by inserting wooden blocks with an appropriate size and wrapped with a Teflon sheet into the hollow space before resin application. A vacuum-assisted resin infusion technique was used to produce spacer woven composites. While changing the reinforcement from chopped fibers to 3D fabric, its modulus and ductility increase substantially. It was established that the number of crossover points in the weave structures offered excellent association with the impact energy absorption and formability behavior, which are important for many applications including automobiles, wind energy, marine and aerospace. Mechanical characterization of honeycomb composites with different cell sizes, opening angles and wall lengths revealed that the specific compression energy is higher for regular honeycomb structures with smaller cell sizes and a higher number of layers, keeping constant thickness.