A Competitive Study of the Static and Fatigue Performance of Flax, Glass, and Flax/Glass Hybrid Composites on the Structural Example of a Light Railway Axle Tie

Abstract

The most common studies in the literature are those analyzing fatigue life under cyclic loading for flax fiber-reinforced composites. A novel type of staple fiber yarn made from flax tow with almost unidirectional fiber orientation and a quasi-unidirectional fabric was developed for composite applications. Additionally, a hybrid material made of flax and glass was produced for a demonstrator component (an axle tie of a narrow-gauge railway). For such an application, the investigation of fatigue strength is of particular importance. Therefore, the fatigue behavior of flax, glass, and hybrid flax/glass composites was investigated in the high cycle fatigue range. A total of 106 load cycles were carried out. From about 7³ to 8³ loading cycles, the flax laminate was found to have higher fatigue strength than the glass fiber-reinforced composite. The hybrid materials tend to show a higher fatigue strength than the glass type from approximately 2 × 105 load cycles. Results based on a finite element method also demonstrate better fatigue properties at an increased number of load cycles for flax-based composites than the glass fiber-reinforced component. The flax/glass component’s fatigue strength ranged between the flax values and the glass fiber-reinforced composites. Overall, the hybrid material shows significantly better static bending and impact characteristics than flax and considerably better fatigue properties than the glass fiber-reinforced composite making the hybrid material attractive for an application in an axle tie.

A Bio-Inspired Approach to Improve the Toughness of Brittle Bast Fibre-Reinforced Composites Using Cellulose Acetate Foils

“…A combination of bast and carbon fibres can lead to an increase in the stiffness and toughness of pure bast fibre-reinforced composites and, at the same time, significantly improve the damping properties of pure carbon fibre-reinforced composites [ 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 ]. It has also been shown that the fatigue strength of, e.g., flax fibre-reinforced materials is better than that of glass fibre-reinforced composites above a certain number of loading cycles [ 67 ]. However, other cellulose-based fibres can also be combined, e.g., bast and regenerated cellulose fibres, to increase the toughness of the bast fibre-reinforced composites [ 45 , 60 ].…”

An Overview of Natural Fiber Composites for Marine Applications

“…Graupner et al [108] compared the static and fatigue performance of different flax, glass, and flax/glass-reinforced composites using an epoxy matrix manufactured by resin transfer molding (RTM). The results showed that at high loading cycles, from about 7 3 to 8 3 , high-quality flax samples had higher fatigue strength than glass samples, showing the potential durability of flax composites with processing optimization.…”

Durability of Plant Fiber Composites for Structural Application: A Brief Review

“…For now, the improvement of fatigue performance of PFCs has not gained as much attention as other aspects of PFCs. Nonetheless, recent available research work has revealed a general trend that good fiber/matrix adhesion can lead to higher long-term durability [86,87]. Asumani and Paskaramoorthy [88] performed two fiber treatments (alkali-alone treatment and combined alkali-silane treatment) on kenaf fibers and tested the fatigue performance of kenaf-reinforced polypropylene composites.…”