Abstract
Plant fibers are being increasingly explored for their use in engineering polymers and composites, and many works have described their properties, especially for flax and hemp fibers. Nevertheless, the availability of plant fibers varies according to the geographical location on the planet. This study presents the first work on the mechanical properties of a tropical fiber extracted from the bast of Cola lepidota (CL) plant. After a debarking step, CL fibers were extracted manually by wet-retting. The tensile properties are first identified experimentally at the fibers scale, and the analysis of the results shows the great influence of the cross-section parameters (diameter, intrinsic porosities) on these properties. Tensile properties of CL fibers are also predicted by the impregnated fiber bundle test (IFBT). At this scale of bundles, a hackling step, which reduces shives and contributes to the parallelization of the fibers within bundles, improves tensile properties predicted by IFBT. The comparison with the properties of plant fibers given in the literature shows that CL fibers have tensile properties in the same range as kenaf, flax or hemp fibers.
Highlights
Due to their combination of environmental and technical performances, plant fibers are being increasingly explored and utilized in engineering polymers and composites, and the annual number of published works during the past ten years in the field of natural fiber-reinforced composites has been expanded by a factor of 3.5 [1,2]
The objective was to estimate the performance of these fibers available in Central, East and West African countries to increase their use for bio-based composite applications and to use the experimental methods widely described in the literature for plant fibers
The analysis of the tensile properties of single fibers shows the need to consider the intrinsic porosity of Cola lepidota fibers for the computation of the cross-section
Summary
Due to their combination of environmental and technical performances, plant fibers are being increasingly explored and utilized in engineering polymers and composites, and the annual number of published works during the past ten years in the field of natural fiber-reinforced composites has been expanded by a factor of 3.5 [1,2]. Numerous studies on flax and hemp have compared the tensile properties obtained with these two methods in order to explain the sources of discrepancies [3,8,14,16,17,18] These works have led to the standardization of experimental protocols, which can be used for other local plant fibers. A previous paper was focused on physico-chemical and thermal properties of these CL fibers [35], but without identification on mechanical properties This experimental study aims to compare tensile properties identified with conventional tensile testing at fiber scale with those identified on bundles with the IFBT method and to analyze the influence on these tensile properties of a hackling manual step. Tensile properties of Cola lepidota Fibers are compared with those of other plant fibers
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
