Effect of mechanical properties of rice stem and its fiber on the strength of straw rope

Abstract

As a low-cost and light-weight flexible rope, the production and use of straw rope can promote the transformation of straw into industrial raw materials and improve the utilization rate of straw. However, non-standard production makes the straw rope prone to failure and breakage. In this paper, the Chinese Zhendao 10# variety was selected, and mechanical tests were carried out on the components of rice fiber and rice stem. The tensile strength of the stem is 29.02 MPa, the elastic modulus is 1.03 GPa, and the shear strength is 8.52 MPa. The strength of rice fiber satisfies the Weibull distribution and has been verified by experiments; and the statistical strength of stem fiber is used for the strength analysis of straw rope. Secondly, this paper establishes the strength model of the rice straw rope and explores the failure mechanism through tensile test and explicit dynamic simulation. The results showed that shear failure of rice stem and tensile failure of stem fiber are the main mechanisms for the failure of straw rope. The stress distribution of the straw rope is consistent with the mathematical model. The research could provide a new idea and method for the strength prediction and evaluation of straw rope.