Experimental investigation of tensile properties of eco-composite laminates

Abstract

Natural fiber composites are green composites that are renewable and sustainable towards the environment. It has low density which results in a good specific strength. With the current trending to lower the dependency on petroleum-based products, it leads to investigation on the environmental friendly materials to replace the conventional fibers. Therefore, natural fibers are hybridized with conventional fibers to form eco-composite laminates. Eco-composites have ecological and environmental advantages compared to synthetic composites while its strengths are comparable to the synthetic composites. However, not many studies have been done on the mechanical properties of this type of eco-composites. This paper presents the tensile properties of eco-composites consisting of flax-carbon/epoxy laminates in sandwich-like and intercalation configurations. From the tensile tests, the eco-composites strengths are comparable to the synthetic composite laminates. For eco-composite laminates, sandwich-like configurations are found to have better properties compared to the intercalation counterpart.