Explorative Study on the Use of Curauá Reinforced Polypropylene Composites for the Automotive Industry

Abstract

The automotive industry is under a growing volume of regulations regarding environmental impact and component recycling. Nowadays, glass fiber-based composites are commodities in the automotive industry, but show limitations when recycled. Thus, attention is being devoted to alternative reinforcements like natural fibers. Curauá (Curacao, Ananas erectifolius) is reported in the literature as a promising source of natural fiber prone to be used as composite reinforcement. Nonetheless, one important challenge is to obtain properly dispersed materials, especially when the percentages of reinforcements are higher than 30 wt %. In this work, composite materials with curauá fiber contents ranging from 20 wt % to 50 wt % showed a linear positive evolution of its tensile strength and Young's modulus against reinforcement content. This is an indication of good reinforcement dispersion and of favorable stress transfer at the fiber-matrix interphase. A car door handle was used as a test case to assess the suitability of curauá-based composites to replace glass fiber-reinforced composites. The mechanical analysis and a preliminary lifecycle analysis are performed to prove such ability.The light-weighting of a vehicle can be achieved by design changes, modification of the construction processes or the use of light engineering materials [2,5]. In addition to the above-mentioned regulations, the automotive industry has also to fulfill new regulations related to the end of life of the vehicles. Such regulations, like the European Union (EU) End of Life Vehicle directive, restrict the amount of vehicle that can be landfilled at its disposal. This directive enforces recovering and reusing at least 95% of the vehicle [6,7].The automotive industry has explored alternatives to steel that provide the required mechanical properties while being lighter. These materials include metals like aluminum or magnesium, polymers like polyolefin, or composite materials like glass fiber or natural fiber-reinforced polymers. Moreover, alternative materials must show technical, economic and environmental performances [2].The use of natural fiber-reinforced polymers has caught the attention of automotive industry, due to certain reasons. On the one hand, natural fibers come from renewable resources, locally available and comparatively cheaper than mineral fibers [8][9][10]. On the other hand, natural fibers are lighter than glass fibers, and thus, natural fiber-reinforced materials tend to show higher specific properties [11]. Nowadays, the use of natural fiber-reinforced composites has increased [9]. These materials are used for globe boxes, door panels, seat coverings, seat surfaces, trunk panels, trunk floors, spare tire covers, insulation, headliners, or dashboards [9,12]. The use of natural fiber-reinforced composites has been limited to non-structural or semi-structural purposes, and usually as an alternative to glass fiber-reinforced materials [9,12,13]. The most common natural fibers used as reinforcement in the automotive industry are jute, ...

Impact Strength and Water Uptake Behavior of Bleached Kraft Softwood-Reinforced PLA Composites as Alternative to PP-Based Materials

“…Besides, the water uptake behavior of PLA composites is in line with other natural fiber-reinforced PP composites [ 55 , 76 , 78 ], reinforcing the suitability of such materials to be a greener alternative. Some of these composites are actually in use in the automotive and industrial design industries [ 84 , 85 , 86 ].…”

Study on the Macro and Micromechanics Tensile Strength Properties of Orange Tree Pruning Fiber as Sustainable Reinforcement on Bio-Polyethylene Compared to Oil-Derived Polymers and Its Composites

“…Polypropylene (PP) is another of the commodity matrices commonly used to obtain natural fiber-reinforced composites [ 59 , 60 , 61 ]. PP like Isplen PP099 K2M by Repsol-YPF (Tarragona, Spain), returned 28.4 MPa tensile strength.…”

Evolution of Interfacial Shear Strength and Mean Intrinsic Single Strength in Biobased Composites from Bio-Polyethylene and Thermo-Mechanical Pulp-Corn Stover Fibers

“…Natural fibers can be obtained from different sources. In this sense it is necessary to distinguish between the fibers coming from: (i) wood sources such as eucalyptus or pine [6][7][8]; (ii) vegetable fibers such as jute, abaca, flax or other materials [9,10]; (iii) recycled fibers such as recycled paper [11,12]; (iv) fibers from agro-forestry residues [13][14][15]. composition of the corn fibers should result in a good interface [31][32][33].…”