Practical solution for improving the mechanical behaviour of the composite materials reinforced with flax woven fabric

Abstract

This article focuses on finding a practical solution for improving the mechanical behaviour especially in bending in case of the composite materials reinforced with flax fabric. For this purpose, two kinds of composites having the same number of layers are mechanically tested: the flax/epoxy composite and the flax/glass/epoxy composite (hybrid composite). The mechanical tests used were tensile test and bending test (three-point method). Different results corresponding to the weft or warp directions were remarked in case of the hybrid composite: for example, the maximum values of the tensile strength and the flexural strength measured in the weft direction are 40.63% and 34.61% greater, respectively, than the values corresponding to the warp direction. This article reports the improvement of the mechanical properties by replacing the flax reinforcement with glass reinforcement in the two upper and lower layers of the flax composite materials: increasing with 35.19% in terms of Young’s modulus E recorded in the tensile test, with 79.86% of the maximum value of the tensile stress and with 91.08% of the maximum value of the flexural stress. Composite beam theory was considered and theoretical approaches were validated by the experimental results.