Biocomposites have attracted a great deal of interest in research and industry sectors because they are typically lightweight, sustainable, environmentally friendly, and their thermomechanical properties can be designed to fit specific applications by tuning of their composition. In this study, mechanical properties of natural-fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite films were explored. Thermo...

Living systems rely on pervasive vascular networks to enable a plurality of biological function in both soft and hard tissue. Extensive vasculature in composite structures, such as osseous tissue in bone and tracheary elements in trees, exemplify natural materials that are lightweight, high-strength, and capable of mass and energy transport. In contrast, synthetic composites possess high streng...

This paper presents the development and application of a heat transfer inversion procedure to the cure of thermoset based composites based on genetic algorithms. The procedure is utilized for process optimization applied to the curing of carbon fiber reinforced composites. The optimization objective is the selection of an appropriate cure schedule so that the duration of the curing is minimized...

Potassium methyl siliconate (PMS) was investigated as a new nano modifier of wood fiber and wood flour to improve the compatibility between the fiber/flour and the plastic matrix in fiber reinforced plastic composites. Before injection molding, bleached and brown pulp fibers and mixed species wood flour were pretreated in PMS solutions. The morphology of the treated and untreated fiber and flou...

A procedure to calculate the spatial fiber length in discontinuously reinforced composites from data of conventional metallographical images is developed. The method is based on the following three assumptions: first, the measured length of a reinforcing fiber in a metallographical picture is a projection of the actual fiber length; second, the alignment of short fibers is axially symmetrical (...

Fiber-reinforced composite resin (FRC) prostheses offer the advantages of good aesthetics, minimal invasive treatment, and an ability to bond to the abutment teeth, thereby compensating for less-than-optimal abutment tooth retention and resistance form. These prostheses are composed of two types of composite materials: fiber composites to build the framework and hybrid or microfill particulate ...

1. Abstract The aim of this work is to perform hierarchical optimization [1] in laminated composite structures, considering simultaneously macroscopic and microscopic levels in the design of the structure and its material. In the macroscopic level, the optimization algorithm cares with orientations and fiber volume fractions of unidirectionally reinforced composite material layers. In the micro...

Mobile microrobots with characteristic dimensions on the order of 1cm are difficult to design using either MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology or precision machining. This is due to the challenges associated with constructing the high strength links and high-speed, low-loss joints with micron scale features required for such systems. Here we present an entirely new framework for cr...

The aim of this study was to investigate the flexural behavior of engineered cementitious composites (ECCs) reinforced by cellulose pulp (CP) and cellulose microfibers (CMF). The reinforcements were obtained from chemical-mechanical treatments of Kraft paper and used in ECC mix design. Results showed that cement reinforced by CP exhibited a strain-hardening behavior in the three-point bending t...

Fiber-reinforced polymer–matrix composites are known to exhibit loading rateand time-dependent mechanical response. Their fatigue strength is determined by a complex interaction of damage processes governed by loading duration and cycle number. Apart from mechanistic approaches, a number of empirical models of various sophistication have been proposed to predict the durability of composites, di...