High Quality Flax Fibre Composites Manufactured by the Resin Transfer Moulding Process

Abstract

In this work the use of high quality natural fibres as reinforcements was studied using the resin transfer moulding (RTM) processing technique. The fibres were unidirectional high quality Arctic Flax and the matrix was an epoxy resin. The mechanical properties of the composites were compared to conventional RTM manufactured glass fibre composites, traditionally retted UD-flax fibre composites and to the pure epoxy. The results from mechanical testing showed that the (50/50) high quality ArcticFlax/epoxy composite has a stiffness of about 40 GPa compared to the stiffness in pure epoxy of 3.2 GPa. The same composite has a tensile strength of 280 MPa compared to 80 MPa of the epoxy. RTM showed to be a suitable processing technique for natural fibre composites when high quality laminates are preferred.