Breeding Flax for Fiber Type of Plant

Pilot plant for processing flax fiber

A flax fiber pilot plant is needed to process small samples of flax straw into fibers to facilitate research on retting and fiber properties. Our objective was to develop and test a modular design for a flax processing pilot plant based on a commercial line that was capable of cleaning fiber and seed flax straw from unretted, dew-retted, and enzyme-retted samples. The USDA Flax Fiber Pilot Plan...

Overview of Flax Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites

Flax fibres are oftenly used for reinforcing thermoplastic to manufacture biocomposite materials exhibiting numerous advantages such as high mechanical properties, low density and biodegradability. The mechanical properties of a biocomposite material depends on the nature and orientation of the fibres, the nature of the matrix and mainly on the adhesion between fiber and the polymer matrix. The...

Flax Fiber: Potential for a New Crop in the Southeast

Evolution of plant breeding

Plant breeding is considered one of the longest ongoing activities undertaken by humans, who select plants more productive and useful to themselves and the animals for at least 10,000 years ago. The evolution of civilizations paralleled the success of plant breeding, although this has not been recognized by the public. The reason may be lack of understanding of what plant breeding encompasses. ...

An Acoustic Emission Study of Flax Fiber-Reinforced Polypropylene Composites

Sensitivity to crack propagation in flax fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites has been examined on SEN-T specimens. The sound waves that arise due to loading have been investigated with the acoustic emission method. Linear functional relationship has been revealed between the number of acoustic events that occur during loading and the fracture toughness. It has also been observed that...