Natural fibers are emerging as low cost, lightweight and apparently environmentally superior alternatives to glass fibers in composites. We review select comparative life cycle assessment studies of natural fiber and glass fiber composites, and identify key drivers of their relative environmental performance. Natural fiber composites are likely to be environmentally superior to glass fiber comp...

Macroscopic instabilities of fiber reinforced composites undergoing large deformations are studied. Analytical predictions for the onset of instability are determined by application of a new variational estimate for the behavior of hyperelastic composites. The resulting, closed-form expressions, are compared with corresponding predictions of finite element simulations. The simulations are perfo...

Magnesium phosphate cement (MPC) has been proven to be a very good repair material for deteriorated concrete structures. It has excellent adhesion performance, leading to high bonding strength with old concrete substrates. This paper presents an experimental study into the properties of MPC binder as the matrix of carbon fiber sheets to form fiber-reinforced inorganic polymer (FRIP) composites....

Carbon nanotube-copper (CNT/Cu) composites have been successfully synthesized by means of a novel particles-compositing process followed by spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. The thermal conductivity of the composites was measured by a laser flash technique and theoretical analyzed using an effective medium approach. The experimental results showed that the thermal conductivity unusually d...

Polylactic acid (PLA)/styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS) composites were prepared by melt blending. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and wide angle X-ray diffraction (WXRD) were used to characterize PLA and PLA/SEBS composites in terms of their melting behavior and crystallization. Curves from thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) illustrated that thermostability increased with SEBS c...

Tin-oxide and graphene (TG) composites were fabricated using the Electrostatic Spray Deposition (ESD) technique, and tested as anode materials for Li-ion batteries. The electrochemical performance of the as-deposited TG composites were compared to heat-treated TG composites along with pure tin-oxide films. The heat-treated composites exhibited superior specific capacity and energy density than ...

the use of agriculture residues as filler in composites is increasing due to their strength, abundance and low cost. soya stalks show promising renewable natural fiber. in polyethylene composites the physical and mechanical properties (flexural resistance, tensile, impacted absorbed energy, water uptake and thickness swelling) was examined at different composites. the results showed that, the m...

A maximal product of stiffness and viscoelastic damping (E tan d), a figure of merit for damping layers, is desirable for structural damping applications. Particulate-reinforced metal–matrix composites were prepared by ultrasonic agitation of the melt and composed of the zinc–aluminum (ZnAl) alloy Zn80Al20 (in wt%) as the lossy matrix and SiC or BaTiO3 as the particulate reinforcements. ZnAl–Si...

The influence of the fiber used as reinforcement in resin matrix composite materials submitted to repeated low energy impacts is analyzed. The aramid, glass and carbon fiber composites were submitted to drop weight tests from 0.5m and from 1m. The number of impact events necessary to cause failure was recorded, and the fracture characteristics of each composite were analyzed by optical microsco...

Hybrid composites are characterized by a variety of properties that are of interest to automotive applications, including strength, mechanical, and thermal properties. In this work, palm kernel shell-filled maleated polypropylene composites and palm kernel shell/nanosilica-filled maleated polypropylene hybrid composites were produced using a Brabender Internal Mixer. The results showed that the...