Fibre Composite Materials Research
A Research done as part of my engineering studies, where I wrote a research paper about the relationship between natural and synthetic materials in fibre composites. This involved a study into the current literature about fibre composites, experimentation and data analysis of the samples of natural and synthetic fibre composites that I made for this research.
Year
2024
Fibre Composites and You
Fibre composites are a very common material that is used in many industries, like in Automotive, Maritime and aviation. Typically used for both structural and exteriors, their lightweight and high tensile strength made them a good alternative to typuically heavier metal components. Fibre composites are made from a matrix, like Epoxy resin, thermoplastics, etc, and reinforcement, such as carbon fibre, glass fibre, hemp fibres, etc. They work together to combine their strengths and lessen their weaknesses, forming a strong, lightweight material and can be tailored for many use cases. The most common fibre composites are made from epoxy resin and either glass fibres or carbon fibres, these are the synthetic fibre composite, and they are harmful to people and the environment. Synthetic epoxy resin is made from BPA plastic, that alters human immune and reproductive systems, and brain function, the synthetic fibres like carbon and glass fibres have relatively low environmental performance. There exist an alternative, which are their natural counterparts. This research explored the relationship between the natural and the synthetics in fibre composites, investigating alternatives to synthetic fibre composites for the automotive industry , due to the lack of sustainability of the material.
Process: Experimentation
To understand the relationship of the natural and synthetic components of the composite, I made samples from glass fibre and hemp fibre, with either epoxy or bio-epoxy resin. The samples are then tested for their tensile and flexural strengths, and compared with each other under dry or wet conditions. This is done to gain a better understanding of environmental impacts on their performance, the real world is often wetter than lab condition. This mean the factors being examined are the fibre type, resin type and the moisture level. This took some time, as the samples would have to be cut from the glass/hemp fibre fabric, placed in a silicon mould, with resin poured in, and finally placed in vacuum and pressed for 24 hours. When all of the required samples have been prepared, they were tested on the same day with an Instron Machine, pictured above. These were all done according to internationally recognized standards for testing with ASTM D7264 & D3039.
Results and Conclusion
From the experimental results, there was a clear distinction between the glass fibre samples and the hemp fibre samples, but less clear when it comes to the other factors being tested. This can be explained by the fact that a majority of the strength, both tensile and flexural, is coming from the fibres, and not from the resins, with the resin having protected the fibres from moisture. The limitations of budget and time for this research really showed when there are not enough samples to determine the statistically significant results to reliable determine the relationships between the 3 factors.
With the results gathered, there doesn't seem to be, with the limited data available from the testing done, the factors that was investigated does not appear to have much effect on the mechanical strength of the composites tested. The only factor that caused a significant difference is the fibre type, where the synthetic glass fibre was stronger than the hemp fibre composites, with the number of samples used in this research. Moisture was not significant, with the t-test done for testing moisture as a factor, shows that there were no differences between wet and dry samples, which was unexpected. The other factor that was investigated was the resin type, between synthetic epoxy resin and bio-epoxy resin. This investigation found that there wasn’t a statistically significant difference between the samples with bio-resin or synthetic resin.
Therefore, there are no differences in mechanical performance when using natural or synthetic fibre composite, compared to using natural or synthetic matrix in different moisture conditions.