Rule of mixture models are usually used in the tensile properties prediction of polymer composites reinforced with synthetic fibres. They are less utilized for natural fibre/polymer composites due to natural fibres physical and mechanical properties variability which reduces rule of mixture model's prediction values accuracy compared to the experimental values. This had led to studies conducted by various researchers to improve the existing rule of mixture models to give a better reflection of the true natural fibres properties and enhance the rule of mixture models prediction accuracy. In this paper, rule of mixture model's utilization includes the existing rule of mixture models as well as proposed rule of mixture models which have one or more factors incorporated into existing rule of mixture models for natural fibre/polymer composites tensile properties prediction are reviewed.
This study evaluates the influence of hybridization on the flammability, thermal, dynamic mechanical and impact properties of bamboo–glass hybrid polypropylene composites. Flammability tests using cone calorimetry show that the hybrid composites performed better than the glass–polypropylene (GPP) composites, exhibiting a minimum reduction of 19% on the heat release rate (HRR) and smoke release as well as taking longer to ignite. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) reveals that the hybrid composites are thermally more stable before starting to degrade at 275°C and fully degraded at 400°C. The dynamic mechanical analysis shows an increase in the storage modulus indicating higher stiffness and lower damping ratio in the case of hybrid composites. The charpy impact strength of the hybrid composites was increased to 1129.2 J m−1 compared to 530.9 J m−1 of bamboo–polypropylene composites. These results indicate that, by replacing several layers of glass with bamboo fabric in GPP composites, a hybrid concept is feasible for developing an excellent and economical lightweight composite.
The preliminary analysis of laminate composite was conducted to analyse the optimal number of layers for aircraft radome application. In this work, the ESAComp software was used for preliminary analysis to predict the displacement during the flight operation. The ESAComp is a finite element software used for preliminary and conceptual design for composite layers. Flax fibre, glass fibre and epoxy resin were applied as the hybrid composite laminate design. The laminate construction consists of flax as the center laminate and sandwiched between glass fibre. Both fibres have the same weave pattern which is twill 2/2 and 200 gsm. The material properties for each materials were obtained from technical data sheet and used as input value for ESAComp. This software was used to analyse a single ply engineering constant by conducting fibre/matrix micromechanics analysis. The value of engineering constant of single ply for each material is then used for laminate analysis. It has range from 4,6 and 8 layers with 20%, 30% and 40% of fibre content on a flat panel with the size of 300 mm x 300 mm. The panel were fixed on each edges and under aerodynamic pressure load plus safety factor of two. Based on the result of analysis, minimum layer required is at least 6 layers if acceptance displacement is 0.1 mm. Therefore, experimental works on 6 layers hybrid laminate will be carried out to determine other requirement for aircraft radome application.
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