Tough, natural-fibre composites based upon epoxy matrices

Flax fibres and cellulose fibres were used to manufacture composites with particle-modified epoxy matrices in order to develop ‘green’ composites which possess relatively high values of interlaminar fracture energy, G c. The flax used had a unidirectional architecture of continuous yarns spun from short, interlocked fibres. The regenerated cellulose consisted of continuous and non-twisted pure cellulose fibres in a plain-woven architecture. The natural-fibre-reinforced-polymer (NFRP) composites employed an anhydride-cured diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A epoxy as the matrix. The epoxy polymeric matrix was modified with (a) silica nanoparticles, (b) rubber microparticles, and (c) a combination of both of these types of particles to give a hybrid-toughened epoxy matrix. The composites were manufactured via a resin infusion under flexible-tooling (RIFT) process. Preliminary studies on the NFRP composites manufactured using the initial-RIFT process clearly showed the deleterious effect that moisture present in the natural fibres had upon the properties of the NFRP composites, since the trapped water cannot escape from the composite panel. Hence, an optimised-RIFT process was developed whereby the natural fibres were dried in a fan oven prior to being employed in the RIFT process. This reduced the water content of the fibres from around 9 to 10 wt% to about 1 wt%. Significant improvements in the physical and mechanical properties were recorded for the NFRP composites manufactured using this optimised-RIFT process. Indeed, in particular, very dramatic improvements in the G c of the NFRP composites were measured, especially when the epoxy polymeric matrix was modified using the silica nanoparticles and/or rubber microparticles. For example, a steady-state propagation value of G c of about 1935 J/m2 was measured for the flax–fibre composite with the hybrid epoxy matrix, compared to values of 1110 and 535 J/m2 for the flax–fibre and glass–fibre composites based on the unmodified (i.e., the ‘control’) epoxy matrix, respectively.