Piyatuchsananon T, et al. Advances in Materials Science and Engineering, 2015, 2015(1), 345398.
Flax slivers are a plant-based natural fiber that can be used in composite reinforcements and are expected to be an alternative composite material to glass fiber reinforcements. This work investigates the effect of fiber waviness on the tensile strength of flax sliver reinforced composites.
Experimental methods and results
· Flax slivers were used as reinforcements and a biodegradable thermoplastic resin was used as the matrix. First, the fibers on the front side were sealed with resin and dried for 24 hours. Then, the other side (back side) was subjected to the same process as the front side. The thickness ranged from 0.4 to 0.6 mm, a range that was sufficient to exhibit almost the same fiber orientation on the surface and inside. The resin paste-like fragments were called preforms. Subsequently, different composite samples were prepared by the sheet lamination method (SLM) and the direct method (DM), respectively.
· Fiber waviness was quantified by local Moran's I and local Geary's c, both of which can indicate the degree of disorder in fiber orientation. The results show that local Moran's I correlates well with the tensile strength of the composite samples when an appropriate threshold level is selected. On the other hand, the local Geary's c is not well correlated with the tensile strength of each sample.
