In recent years, studies of composite materials have focused on the use of natural fibres as an alternative to synthetic ones. Their attractive mechanical properties, sustainability, low cost and low weight have leveraged research in this area, with the potential of a variety of applications in the engineering field. In this paper, a Full Factorial Design (2¹6¹) experiment was performed to identify the effect of silica microparticle inclusions and the stacking sequence of glass fibre cross-ply fabric and short sisal fibre layers on the apparent density, tensile and flexural strength and modulus of hybrid epoxy composites. In general, the hybrid composites with higher number of glass fibre layers achieve higher values of tensile and flexural strength (348 MPa and 663.28 MPa), tensile and flexural modulus (22 GPa and 2.50 GPa) and higher apparent density (2.02 g/cm³). It is, however, noteworthy that the incorporation of silica particles improves the mechanical performance of composites containing larger amounts of sisal fibres.
In the last decades the biocomposites have been widely used in the construction, automobile and aerospace industries. Not only the interface transition zone (ITZ) but also the heterogeneity of natural fibres affects the mechanical behaviour of these composites. This work focuses on the numerical and experimental analyses of a polymeric co mposite fabricated with epo xy resin and unidirectional sisal and banana fibres. A three -d imensional model was set to analyze the composites using the elastic properties of the individual phases. In addition, a two-dimensional model was set taking into account the effective composite properties obtained by micro mechanical models. A tensile testing was performed to validate the numerical analyses and evaluating the interface condition of the constitu tive phases.
The work describes the analytical and experimental characterisation of a class of polymeric composites made from epoxy matrix reinforced with unidirectional natural sisal and banana fibres with silica microparticles and maleic anhydride fabricated by manual moulding. The analytical models, ROM rule of mixtures and Halpin-Tsai approach, have been used in conjunction with a Design of Experiments (DOE) analysis from tensile tests carried out on 24 different composites architectures. The following experimental factors were analyzed in this work: type of fibres (sisal and banana fibres), volume fraction of fibres (30% and 50%) and modified matrix phase by adding silica microparticles (0%wt, 20%wt and 33%wt) and maleic anhydride (0%wt and 2%wt). The ROM approach has shown a general good agreement with the experimental data for composites manufactured with 30%vol of natural fibres, which can be attributed to the strong adhesion found between the phases. On the opposite, the semi empirical model proposed by Halpin and Tsai has shown greater fidelity with composites manufactured from 50%vol of natural fibres, which exhibit a weak interfacial bonding. The addition of microsilica and maleic anhydride in the system did not enhance the adhesion between the phases as expected.
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