Analysis of the mechanical behaviour of flax and glass fabrics-reinforced thermoplastic and thermoset resins

Abstract

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.

Melt-spun polypropylene filaments containing paraffin microcapsules for multifunctional hybrid yarns and smart thermoregulating thermoplastic composites

“…The density of the compounded and as-spun filaments was calculated with the mixture rule, considering a pore volume fraction equal to zero. As the density of a composite with zero porosity can be calculated by the average density of the constituents weighted by the volume fraction of the constituents, the MC volume fraction (ϑ MC ) was first calculated with Equation (1) as: (1) where ω MC is the MC weight fraction of each composition, and ρ MC and ρ PP are the measured density values of MC and PP, respectively. The density of the prepared samples (ρ) was then calculated via the mixture rule with the Equation (2) as:…”

“…The increasing demand for materials with high specific stiffness and strength and for structures with lightweight complex geometries has considerably expanded the use of polymer-matrix composites as structural materials, especially in weight-critical applications in the automotive, aerospace, sports, and energy industries [1,2]. In a polymer composite, the matrix can be constituted by a thermoplastic or a thermosetting polymer, but for high-performance composites the currently preferred choice is to couple continuous reinforcing fibers with a thermosetting resin, due to the generally higher mechanical properties, the better thermal stability and the wellestablished processing techniques [2,3].…”

A viscoelastoplastic stiffening model for plant fibre unidirectional reinforced composite behaviour under monotonic and cyclic tensile loading

“…The flax reinforcement used in this work weighed 110 g. m −2 (values from the manufacturer). The properties of plant fibres are affected by many factors including variety, climate, harvest, maturity, retting degree, decortication, mechanical disintegration, fibre modification, and textile and technical processes [12]. The matter was supplied without any information concerning variety and growing conditions.…”

“…Some authors have developed models to simulate the nonlinear mechanical behaviour of natural fibre-based composites [11,12,8,[13][14][15][16] The main purpose of this paper is to improve the VEP model by adding this stiffening phenomenon. In this study, the used material is a unidirectional flax-reinforced epoxy composite, and the loading strain rate range is wide enough (̇10 −3 to 10 −7 s −1 ) to explore the phenomenon of stiffening in repeated progressive loading (RPL).…”

Novel reactive thermoplastic resin as a matrix for laminates containing phase change microcapsules

“…Conversely, the newly developed reactive methyl methacrylate matrix Elium can be processed at room temperature with processing techniques typical of thermosets, like resin transfer molding (RTM) and resin infusion, as the initial viscosity is as low as 100 mPa s (as reported in the technical datasheet). Unlike many thermoplastics, the mechanical properties of this resin are comparable to those of a high‐performance epoxy resin , and it has been observed to feature even better vibration damping properties and a higher fracture toughness , as well as a good adhesion strength with carbon fibers and a low viscosity, which eases the processability . Moreover, the interface created with glass fibers can be optimized by a proper acrylic sizing .…”