Abstract
Flax fibre has recently been found to have the potential to replace synthetic fibres in fibre reinforced polymer composites, and in the presented study, flax fabric-reinforced epoxy (FFRE) is introduced as a new material for structural tube manufacture. Four-point loading experiments were conducted on twelve FFRE specimens with the same span-to-diameter ratio, but a varying number of fabric layers, to establish the effect of the number of fabric layers on flexural strength, deformation characteristics, energy absorption capability, axial and circumferential strains, as well as the tube failure mechanism. Cross-sectional deformation (i.e. squashing of the cross-section along the tube span) was observed to be the dominant deformation mode associated with tube flexural response. The experimental results obtained were compared to the analytical expressions available in the literature for tubes placed between rigid plates parallel to tube axial axis and subjected to lateral compression (squashing), and good correlation was found between the experimental and predicted results.
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