Alpha-grass was studied as the reinforcement in a starch-based polymer matrix. Mater-bi®-Y was chosen as a matrix due to its Young’s modulus, in line with that of polypropylene. The test specimens were injection molded and tensile tested. The obtained results were compared to glass fiber reinforced polypropylene. The reinforcing fibers increased the Young’s modulus significantly, obtaining valu...

Tests of deep concrete beams with internal fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement have shown that such members can exhibit lower shear strength than members with conventional steel reinforcement. To model this effect, the current paper proposes an approach based on a two-parameter kinematic theory (2PKT) for conventional deep beams. The 2PKT is built on a kinematic model with two degrees ...

Glass fiber reinforced polymer composites are finding its increased applications in variety of engineering applications such as aerospace, automobile, electronics and other industries. However, the users of FRP are facing difficulties to machine it, because of fiber delamination, fiber pull out, short tool life, matrix debonding and formation of powder like chips. The present investigation focu...

In this study, a technique has been proposed for developing constitutive models for polymer composite systems reinforced with single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) with various orientations with respect to the bulkmaterial coordinates. A nanotube, the local polymer adjacent to the nanotube, and the nanotube/polymer interface have been modeled as an equivalent-continuum fiber by using an equival...

An existing challenge in the use of continuous fiber reinforcements additively manufactured parts is limited availability suitable materials. This leads to a reduced adaptability mechanical properties load case. The increased design freedom additive manufacturing allows flexible deposition strands at defined positions, so that even different materials can be easily combined printed part. In thi...

Effective elastic properties for carbon nanotube reinforced composites are obtained through a variety of micromechanics techniques. An embedded carbon nanotube  in  a  polymer  matrix  and  its surrounding  interphase  is  replaced with an equivalent fiber for  predicting  the  mechanical  properties of  the  carbon  nanotube/polymer composite. The effects of an interphase layer between the nan...

Short banana fiber reinforced composites have been prepared in laboratory to determine mechanical properties. It has been observed that as soon as the percentage of the banana fiber increases slightly there is a tremendous increase in ultimate tensile strength, % of strain and young modulus of elasticity. Reinforcement of banana fibers in epoxy resin increases stiffness and decreases damping pr...

Thermo-set based composites using epoxy resin systems currently dominate the composite industry. Glass-reinforced epoxy composites are extensively used in the structural composites of aircraft industry due to low shrinkage, ease of fabrication, chemical resistance, and higher mechanical and electrical properties. The above characteristics coupled with techno-economic considerations are mainly r...