Mechanical Properties of Flax Fibers and Their Composites
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ISSN: 1402-1544 ISBN 978-91-86233-XX-X Se i listan och fyll i siffror där kryssen är DOCTORAL T H E SIS Department of Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering Division of Polymer Engineering Edgars Sp ISSN: 1402-1544 ISBN 978-91-7439-025-4 Mechanical Properties of Flax Fibers Luleå University of Technology 2009 ā rniņš and Their Composites Mechanical Properties of Their Flax Composites Fibers and Edgars Spārniņš Mechanical properties of flax fibers and their composites by Edgars SpƗrniƼš Division of Polymer Engineering Department of Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering Luleå University of Technology S-971 87 Luleå, SWEDEN October 2009 Printed by Universitetstryckeriet, Luleå 2009 ISSN: 1402-1544 ISBN 978-91-7439-025-4 Luleå www.ltu.se PREFACE The work presented in this thesis concerns flax fibers as a potential replacement of synthetic fibers in conventional polymer composites. The thesis consists of a general introduction and literature review and eight journal papers. Research nowadays often is a result of team work. Therefore there are a couple of persons that I would like to acknowledge. First, I thank my supervisors: Dr. Roberts Joffe, Dr. JƗnis Andersons, Prof. JƗnis VƗrna and Prof. Vitauts Tamužs. I would like to thank my co-authors Dr. Lennart Wallström, Ms. Evija PoriƷe, Dr. Kalle Nättinen and Ms. Johanna Lampinen as well. Further thanks go to Mr. Vilis Skruls and Mr. Uldis Vilks, research engineers from Institute of Polymer Mechanics, Riga, Latvia. They helped with experimental equipment setup for single fiber tensile tests. Mr. Rnjdolfs Livanoviþs is acknowledged for developing the code of fiber image analysis. I also thank Dr. Harriëtte L. Bos, who allowed me to use her illustration figure in this thesis. Edgars SpƗrniƼš 2009-10-29, Luleå iii iv SUMMARY Flax fibers, along with a number of other natural fibers, are being considered as an environmentally friendlier alternative of synthetic fibers in fiber-reinforced polymer composites. A common feature of natural fibers is a much higher variability of mechanical properties. This necessitates study of the flax fiber strength distribution and efficient experimental methods for its determination. Elementary flax fibers of different gauge lengths are tested by single fiber tension in order to obtain the stress-strain response and strength and failure strain distributions. The applicability of single fiber fragmentation test for flax fiber failure strain and strength characterization is considered. It is shown that fiber fragmentation test can be used to determine the fiber length effect on mean fiber strength and limit strain. The effect of mechanical damage in the form of kink bands and of diameter variability on the strength of elementary flax fibers is considered. Stiffness and strength under uniaxial tension of flax fiber composites with thermoset and thermoplastic polymer matrices are studied. The applicability of rule of mixtures and orientational averaging based models, developed for short fiber composites, to flax reinforced polymers are evaluated. Both the quasi-static and time dependent mechanical properties of flax fiber/thermoplastic starch based composites are analyzed. The effect of temperature and relative humidity is investigated. It is found that microdamage accumulation in this type of composites is not significant. Results show that the composite elastic modulus and failure stress are linearly related to the maximum stress reached by the matrix in tensile tests. Simple material models are suggested to account for the observed nonlinear viscoelasticity and viscoplasticity. v vi LIST OF PAPERS This thesis comprises the following papers: Paper A Andersons J., SpƗrniƼš E., Joffe R., Wallström L. Strength distribution of elementary flax fibres. Composites Science and Technology, 2005 65: 693-702. Paper B Andersons J., SpƗrniƼš E., Joffe R. Uniformity of filament strength within a flax fiber batch. Journal of Materials Science, 2009 44: 685–687. Paper C Andersons J., PoriƷe E., SpƗrniƼš E. The effect of mechanical defects on the strength distribution of elementary flax fibers. Composites Science and Technology, 2009 69: 2152-2157. Paper D Andersons J., SpƗrniƼš E., PoriƷe E. Strength and damage of elementary flax fibers extracted from tow and long line flax. Journal of Composite Materials, 2009 43(22): 2653-2664. Paper E SpƗrniƼš E., Andersons J. Diameter variability and strength distribution of elementary flax fibers. Journal of Materials Science, 2009 44: 5697-5699. Paper F Andersons J., Joffe R., SpƗrniƼš E. Stiffness and strength of flax fiber/polymer matrix composites. Polymer Composites, 2006 27(2): 221-229. Paper G SpƗrniƼš E., Pupurs A., Varna J., Joffe R., Nättinen K., Lampinen J. The moisture and temperature effect on mechanical performance of flax/starch composites in quasi-static tension. Submitted to Polymer Composites, 2009. Paper H SpƗrniƼš E., Varna J., Joffe R., Nättinen K., Lampinen J. Time dependent behavior of flax/starch composites. To be submitted in Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials, 2009. vii viii CONFERENCES Content of the papers has been reported in following conferences: I. Joffe R., Andersons J., SpƗrniƼš E., Wallström L. Flax fibres for structural composites. Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Eco- Composites EcoComp 2003, 1-2 September 2003, Queen Mary, University of London, United Kingdom. 10 p. II. SpƗrniƼš E., Andersons J., Joffe R., Wallström L. Mechanical properties of elementary flax fibers and flax-fiber composites. Thirteen International Conference on Mechanics of Composite Materials, May 16-20, 2004, Riga, Latvia. Book of Abstracts. p.181. III. Joffe R., Andersons J., SpƗrniƼš E., Wallström L. Cellulose-Based Fibers and Their Polymer Composites: Characterization and Prediction of Properties. Proceedings of 8th International Conference on Woodfiber- Plastic Composites (and other natural fibers), May 23-25, 2005. Monona Terrace Community & Convention Center, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. p. 25-36. IV. SpƗrniƼš E., Andersons J., Joffe R., Wallström L. Mechanical Properties of Flax Fibres and Composites. Proceedings of International Conference on Structural Analysis of Advanced Materials ICSAM 2005, 15-17 September 2005, University “Politehnica” of Bucharest, Romania. p. 47- 54. V. Andersons J., SpƗrniƼš E., Porike, E., Joffe R. Strength distribution of elementary flax fibers due to mechanical defects. Proceedings of 11th International Inorganic-Bonded Fiber Composites Conference, Madrid, 2008. p. 247-253. The conference proceedings are not included in the thesis. ix x TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1. Motivation of natural fiber applications in polymer composites.....1 2. State of the art ..................................................................................2 2.1. Some facts from history............................................................2 2.2. Overview of cellulose-based natural fibers...............................3 Structure and Chemical composition...........................................4 Characterization of mechanical properties...................................5 2.3 Factors affecting the strength of flax fibers ...............................7 2.4. Natural fiber composites...........................................................9 Materials ......................................................................................9 Manufacturing............................................................................10 Adhesion ....................................................................................10 Performance and applications....................................................11 2.5. Modeling the mechanical response of composites..................12 Stiffness......................................................................................12 Strength......................................................................................13 Time dependent behavior...........................................................14 3. Current work ..................................................................................15 Paper A...........................................................................................16 Paper B...........................................................................................16 Paper C...........................................................................................17 Paper D...........................................................................................17 Paper E...........................................................................................18 Paper F ...........................................................................................18 Paper G...........................................................................................19 Paper H...........................................................................................20 4. References......................................................................................20 Paper A…………….……….……………………………...…….…27 Paper B…………….……….……………………………...…….…55 Paper C…………….……….……………………………...…….…63 Paper D…………..………………………………………...…….…83 Paper E……………………………………………………………103 Paper F……………………………………………………………113 Paper G………….……………………………………...…………137 Paper H………….………………………………………...………171 xi xii Introduction 1. Motivation of natural fiber applications in polymer composites Due to the exponential growth of human population on Earth we face environmental problems more and more. Now, in 21st century, it is clear that we are paying for advanced