Effect of fibrillation of flax mat binder on the impact response of unidirectional flax/epoxy composites and comparison with a glass/epoxy composite

Samer El Khoury Rouphael (1, 2, 3) , Gilbert Lebrun (1) , Fabienne Touchard (2) , Thuy Quynh Truong Hoang (3)

1 UQTR - Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
2 ENDO - ENDOmmagement et durabilité [Institut Pprime]
3 ESTACA'Lab - ESTACA'Lab

In this study, the behavior of flax fiber (FFC) and glass fiber composite (GFC) laminates under a series of low velocity impact loads from a drop weight impact tower is analyzed and compared. All laminates are made by stacking unidirectional (UD) layers of reinforcement, where the UD flax fibers are combined to short flax fibers used as a mat binder to form the base architecture of this reinforcement denoted by UD-mat. Two types of short flax fibers are taken into consideration for the mat binder: one is unmodified fibers while the second one undergoes a refining modification. When comparing the two types of flax/epoxy laminates, the FFC with refined short flax fibers shows the highest permanent and maximal displacements. Results show that, for all impact energies the maximum load for FFC with unmodified short fibers is higher than that with refined fibers. The flax/epoxy composites absorb more energy than the glass/epoxy ones.

Mots clés: Natural composites; flax; impact behavior; fibrillation; damage

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Samer El Khoury Rouphael, Gilbert Lebrun, Fabienne Touchard, Thuy Quynh Truong Hoang. Effect of fibrillation of flax mat binder on the impact response of unidirectional flax/epoxy composites and comparison with a glass/epoxy composite. 20th European Conference on Composite Materials, ECCM20, Jun 2022, Lausanne, Switzerland. ⟨hal-03758079⟩