Fabrication and mechanical characterization of different stacking sequences of glass/flax embedded fibers into hybrid polymer composites

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research paper aims to fabricate a new Hybrid Polymer Composite by employing novel strategies where the light weight of the composite plays a vital role along with excellent mechanical strength. These composites found a variety of applications in the fields of aerospace, medical equipment, railways, sports, etc. Six layers of Glass/flax fibers are embedded into an epoxy matrix reinforced with nano-ZnO with different weight compositions (0 wt%, 0.1 wt%, 0.2 wt%, 0.3 wt%, 0.4 wt% and 0.5 wt%) fabricated by employing compression molding and hand lay-up method in conjunction. The embedding of fibers is done by incorporating stacking order. The highest value of mechanical strength such as tensile, impact, flexural, interlaminar shear stress, and hardness was founded to be 239.29 MPa, 600.72 J/m 475.56 MPa, 45.12 MPa, and 85.26 at 0.3 wt% respectively which distinctly shows the enhancement of mechanical characteristics by incorporation of Glass/flax fiber along with nano-ZnO into epoxy matrix. Characterization of the material was performed through FESEM and XRD tests to verify its homogeneity. The best results were obtained in the GGFFGG stacking sequence of the hybrid polymer composites.