Investigation of the hybridization effect on mechanical properties of natural fiber reinforced biosourced composites

Abstract

Hybridizing the natural fibers with stronger synthetic fibers could significantly improve the properties of the natural fiber-reinforced composites. The improved mechanical capabilities of fiber reinforced polymers result from the fiber’s capacity for withstanding a more substantial portion of the mechanical load compared to the matrix it replaces. In order to guarantee the efficient transfer of the mechanical load from the matrix to the reinforcement, it is necessary to incorporate a fibrous filler. Transference takes place when the length of the fiber is longer than a specific critical length. Fibers which are shorter than the critical length will pull out from the matrix when tested to a tensile load. In some cases, complete transfer of the load is not performed. The goal of this study is to learn more about flax (FF), glass (GF), and mixtures of flax and glass (FF + GF) short fiber-reinforced PLA-PBS composites. This is performed to find out how the flax/glass combination affects the mechanical properties of PLA-PBS-reinforced short fiber composites. In order to extend their use for industrial applications, these composites were manufactured via extrusion and, afterward, injection molding. Fiber aspect ratios were followed after compounding and injection processing. The analysis of fiber lengths reveals a noteworthy observation: the proportion of fibers exceeding their critical length of 531 µm and 772 µm for FF and GF, respectively, is more significant when flax fibers (FF) and glass fibers (GF) are combined compared to when they reinforce the composite individually. Specifically, the composite containing both FF and GF exhibits a higher percentage of fibers surpassing their critical length, compared to their individual reinforcement in the composite. The results reveal that 27% of individually extracted single FF exceed their critical length, whereas a higher proportion, at 34%, is observed when FF is part of the composite mixture. In contrast, the critical length is surpassed by only 4% of individually extracted single GF, whereas the combined presence of GF in the composite results in a notably higher percentage, at 19%. The tensile properties of these composites were investigated considering the effect of the hybridization by flax/glass short fibers. It was noted that the tensile properties of the hybrid composites increase comparing to the flax composites from 42.4 MPa to 53 MPa for the tensile strength and from 4.9 GPa to 5.4 GPa for the tensile modulus. In contrast, the elongation at break of the hybrid composites decreases from 1.7% to 1.5% with the incorporation of glass fibers. The experimental results were compared with the predictions of the mixture law and the Cox-Krenchel model. The findings indicate that mixing synthetic fibers with natural fibers is an excellent approach to enhancing mechanical properties.