Improvement of Natural Fiber Reinforced Composites Strength for Aerospace Application

Abstract

Over the years, application of composite materials has got wider. So there is a newlinenecessity for development of new materials to satisfy the environmental newlinerequirements. It is viable through the process of hybridization of natural fibers newlineto synthetic fibers. Tensile and flexural test carried out for various fiber newlinecombinations and stacking sequence. Thus it is easy to identify the natural fiber newlinehybrid combination with high mechanical properties under static and varying newlinethermal load conditions. The various fiber materials are meticulously chosen newlineand three conventional and six different hybrid laminates were fabricated with newlinevarious stacking sequences of selected fibers using hand layup technique. The newlinetensile and flexural properties are determined through mechanical testing and newlinecompared with conventional materials. On analyzing the results, it is observed newlinethat carbon-flax hybrid composites exhibit nearly equivalent specific strength at newlinea reduced cost compared to the carbon/glass fiber hybrid composites and also newlinethe effect of the stacking sequence in mechanical properties is elucidated. newlineVarying thermal load analysis reveals that there is a considerable loss in newlinemechanical properties due to thermal exposure.