• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.4
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• pp.515-520
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• 2020

In the modern era, the world is facing unprecedented challenges in form of environmental pollution and international agencies are forcing scientists and materialists to look for green materials and structures to counter this problem. Composites based on renewable sources like plant based fibres, vegetable fibres are finding increasing use in interior components of automobile vehicles, aircraft, and building construction. In the present study, jute and flax fibre based composites were developed and tested for assessing their suitability for possible applications in interior cabin and parts of automobile and aerospace vehicles. Matrix system involves epoxy as resin and fibre weight fractions used were 45% and 55% respectively. Composites samples were prepared as per American society for testing and materials (ASTM) standard and were tested for individual fiber tensile strength, composite tensile strength, and flexural strength to analyse its behavior under various loading conditions. The results revealed that the Jute fibre composites possess enhanced mechanical properties over Flax fibre composites.

• Composites Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.189-194
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• 2013

This paper deals with the study of mechanical properties and impact energy absorbed by composites, made by using thermoplastic and thermoset as matrix, flax fiber and nanoclay as reinforcements. The nanoclay was sprayed on the fiber laminate directly after mixing with ethanol. This experiment designed by Taguchi method and have variable factors, i.e three types of fiber direction(F), three different nanoclay wt%(N) and three spray gun hole shapes(S). According to these conditions, composites were made and the optimum conditions were found to be F1N3S1, F1N2S1, F1N2S1 and F3N2S1 for thermoplastic, and F1N3S2, F1N3S2, F1N2S2 and F3N2S1 for thermoset which were matched with tensile strength, modulus, total impact absorbed energy and heat release rate respectively.

• Composites Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.32-38
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• 2007

Natural fibers can refer to all types of fibres only produced by nature. Their lengths vary from particles to long strands. Natural fibers are categorized roughly by six types, depending on the types of sources; base, leaf, seed, grasses, fruit and wood. Of these fibers, jute, flax, sisal and ramie are the most commonly used as reinforced materials in preparing polymer composites. In development and improvement of these composites, many studies have been implemented to overcome the drawbacks such as incompatibility, moisture problems and so on. The range of industry sectors of natural fiber-reinforced polymer composites becomes more extensive gradually and many of the companies all over the world are engaged in fabrications or applications. This paper mainly discussed the recent status of the domestic/overseas market and research issues of natural fiber-reinforced polymer composites. We made an exception of wood-polymer composites market which have played a great role because they had been often dealt with.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.127-136
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• 2017

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) has received widespread attention in the field of civil engineering because of its superior durability and corrosion resistance. This article presents the damage mechanisms of a novelty composite called carbon nanofiber modified flax fiber polymer (CNF-modified FFRP). The ability of acoustic emission (AE) to detect damage evolution for different configurations of specimens under uniaxial tension was examined, and some useful AE characteristic parameters were obtained. Test results shows that the mechanical properties of modified composites are associated with the CNF content and the evenness of CNF dispersed in the epoxy matrix. Various damage mechanisms was established by means of scanning electron microscope images. The fuzzy c-means clustering were proposed to classify AE events into groups representing different generation mechanisms. The classifiers are constructed using the traditional AE features -- six parameters from each burst. Amplitude and peak-frequency were selected as the best cluster-definition features from these AE parameters. After comprehensive comparison, a correlation between these AE events classes and the damage mechanisms observed was proposed.