Study on Mechanical properties of flax fiber reinforced with different

Matrices. A review
Habtemaryam Bayleyegn, Bahir dar institute of technology, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Abstract

Flax fibers are cost-effective materials have specific mechanical properties which have potential
to replace glass fibers as reinforcement in composite. There are many studies which are done on
flax fiber reinforcement with different types of matrix. The aim of this review is to show the result
of different studies which are done on the investigation of mechanical properties of flax epoxy
composite, flax polypropylene composite and flax thermoplastic composite. And finally it gives a
conclusion based on the results.

1. Introduction
In recent years, the finding of better material in different application area is the major concern of
many studies. The use of composite to replace metal for engineering application has gained
popularity due to the need of high strength to weight ratio and ease of manufacturing. The
synthetic fiber has good mechanical property especially for aerospace, maritime and automotive
application. The drawback of synthetic fiber is its environmental effect.

Due to their advantages being; lower density and higher toughness, comparable strength and
stiffness, lower cost, and less abrasive to equipment and tooling, bio-based fibers have been
replacing mineral or synthetic fibers like glass or carbon fibers as reinforcement (R.S. Rana et
al., 2017). The natural fiber components may be wood, sisal, hemp, coconut, cotton, kenaf, flax,
jute. The mechanical property of natural fibers varies from fiber to fiber.

It is reported that the natural fiber flax shows highest flexural and impact strength among all
other fibers (Arpitha.G.R, B.Yogesha, 2017). te, abaca, banana leaf fibers, bamboo, wheat straw
or other fibrous material. Recent work on flax composites reveals that the specific mechanical
properties of flax composites are comparable to those of glass fiber reinforced composites. Flax
fibers are cost-effective materials have specific mechanical properties which have potential to
replace glass fibers as reinforcement in composite. Their main disadvantage is the variability in
their properties and environmental effects (e.g. high relative humidity) will degrade the tensile
properties of flax fibers (L. Yan et al., 2014).
Generally, polymer can be classified into two classes, thermoplastics and thermosetting.
Thermoplastic materials currently dominate, as matrices for bio-fibres; the most commonly
used thermoplastics for this purpose are polypropylene (PP), polyethylene, and poly vinyl
chloride (PVC); while phenolic, epoxy and polyester resins are the most commonly used
thermosetting matrices

Many authors have worked on flax fiber reinforced with different matrices such as; epoxy,
polypropylene, polyester, polyvinyl and thermoplastic. So his paper provides an overview of the
mechanical properties of flax fiber epoxy composite, flax fiber polypropylene composite, flax
fiber polyester composite and flax fiber thermoplastic composite.

2. Study on flax fiber epoxy composite

There has been a growing body of research on Flax-composites since the 2000s, including UD
and woven fiber configurations, using a variety of different matrix material, for specimens of
varying fiber volume fractions /Z. Mahboob et al. (2017) 118–133. Three types of
reinforcements are studied in this paper. First, UD flax yarns are aligned and used as
reinforcement for a UD-epoxy composite. Second, short flax fibers (5 mm) are processed as mats
using a papermaking protocol and used to produce mat-epoxy composites. Third, short flax
fibers are projected over UD yarns using the same papermaking protocol, in order to produce
UD-mat epoxy composites M. Habibi et al. (2017) 165e178. The reinforcement method affects
the mechanical properties of composite. The specimens having different fiber configurations
layup angles (UD (0 ), (0 (0 , (+45 are used.

Table 1
Tested mechanical properties of neat epoxy and Flax-epoxy laminates (Z. Mahboob et al. (2017)
Z. Mahboob et al.(2017) studied the tensile and compressive damaged response in Flax fiber
reinforced epoxy composites. The study use a unidirectional fabric which can be hand-cut to
desired fiber orientations and a hot-curing epoxy system is used, which is a combination of low-
viscosity epoxy resin and hardener ratio is 4:1 by weight, per supplier specifications. The overall
manufacturing technique is a hand-layup followed by heated-platen compression molding
procedure.

V. Prasad et al. (2018) investigate the mechanical, thermal and water absorption properties of
flax fibre reinforced epoxy composite with Nano TiO2addition. The study used Flax fibres in the
form of balanced satin weave 0°/90° with average thickness 0.7 mm and areal weight 200 gsm
were used as the reinforcement material. The matrix materials used for the study are Epofine 556
(Epoxy) and Fine hard 1926 (hardener). The weighed Nano TiO2were mixed to the epoxy.

The tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength, and interlaminar strength of the various
flax fibre reinforced composite sample with TiO2addition in matrix from 0 wt% to 0.9 wt% is as
shown in the following graph (V. Prasad et al. (2018)).

a b

c d
Figure 1. a)tensile strength, b)fluctural strength, c)impact strength, d)interlaminar shear strength
with different percentage of TiO2

M. Habibi et al. (2017) study the Effect of short flax fibers on biaxial mechanical properties and
damage behavior. In this study three types of specimen having different flax reinforcement are
used. First, UD flax yarns are aligned and used as reinforcement for a UD-epoxy composite.
Second, short flax fibers (5 mm) are processed as mats using a papermaking protocol and used to
produce mat-epoxy composites. Third, short flax fibers are projected over UD yarns using the
same papermaking protocol, in order to produce UD-mat epoxy composites. Experimental
characterization of the tensile and flexural properties of these different composites is performed
in both longitudinal and transverse directions.

The tensile fractural test results are summarized on the following tables (M. Habibi et al. (2017))

Table 2. Summary of tensile strength.

(UD-xx): UD-epoxy composites where xx is the fiber volume fraction.

(M-xx): mat-epoxy composites where xx is once again the fiber volume fraction.

(UDyyy-xx): UD-mat-epoxy composites where yyy is the equivalent areal density of the
projected short flax fiber and xx is still the fiber volume fraction.
Table 3

M. Ravandi et al. (2017), investigated the Low velocity impact performance of stitched
flax/epoxy composite laminates. Four types of speciemen (a) unstitched wovene (PW0), (b)
cotton stitched wovene (PWC) and (c) flax stitched wovene (PWF), (d) unstitched cross-plye
(UDO).

The impact test result of this study is as shown below (M. Ravandi et al. (2017)

Table 4
 3. Study on flax fiber polypropylene composite
Arbelaiz et al.(2005) studies the Mechanical properties of flax fibre/polypropylene composites.
A commercially available polypropylene ‘Eltex-PHV200’ was used as polymeric matrix and the
reinforcement was a natural flax fibre bundle obtained by a biological retting process in which
some waxes and pectin were removed. Maleic anhydride-polypropylene copolymer (MAPP),
maleic anhydride (MA), vinyl tri methoxy silane (VTMO) chemical treatment is conducted
individually. The tensile and fractural properties result is as shown in the following tables.

Table 5

Tensile properties of matrix modified flax fibre bundles/PP and glass fibre/PP composites
containing 30 wt% fibres

Table 6

Flexural properties of matrix modified flax fibre bundles/PP and glass fibre/PP composites
containing 30 wt% fibres

Md Zillur Rahman et.al. (2018) investigated the effects of fiber content and fiber orientation on
the impact behavior of flax fiber reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites. In this study a
Sheets of PP random copolymer (MOPLEN RP241G) with a melt flow rate of 1.5 g/10 min
determined by ISO 1,133 and a thickness of 0.38 mm were used as matrix material and
Unidirectional flax fabric (FlaxPly UD180) with a nominal specific weight of 180 g/m2 and
density of 1.42 g/cm3 was used as reinforcement. The weight distribution of flax fabric in the
warp and weft directions was 95.5% and 4.5%, respectively. A samples with fiber orientations,
o , 30 , 45 , 60 and 90 were cut from the panels using an automatic saw are used. Hence, in this
study, composite laminates (fiber volume fractions of 0.31, 0.40,and 0.50) with different fiber
orientations of o , 30 , 45 , 60 and 90 tested under out-of-plane impact load.

TABLE 6. Drop weight impact properties of flax/PP composite samples

4. flax thermoplastic composite

M. Haggui et al. (2018) investigated the mechanical behaviour and provide a complete set of
static and fatigue loading data on thermoplastic composites based on flaxfiber. Two types of
specime have been used based on flax configuration; Longitudinal (UD-0°) and transversal (UD-
90°).

The stress/strain tensil test result is shown in the following graph

Fig. 2.Composites stress/strain response in tensile test: (a) UD-0° and (b) [UD-90°]S.
 5. conclusion

The mechanical properties of flax fiber are better than other type of natural fiber. The flax fiber
reinforcement composite properties are highly depending on the matrices type used. As we have
seen from the above studies the mechanical properties are different based on the matrices, flax
treatment, reinforcement orientation, and preparation method. But the first main parameters
which affect the mechanical properties is type of matrix. The result shows epoxy matrix is better
than others. The main problem to use epoxy is its high cost. Secondly fiber treatments affect the
result, good fiber treatment results food mechanical properties.
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