Fracture toughness of bio-fiber reinforced polymer composites- a review

Abstract

The growing green and ecological awareness has motivated researchers to develop new innovative composite materials using bio-fiber. Bio-fiber composites are well known for their higher specific and impact strength at a lower weight as compared to conventional materials. Currently, researchers are interested in finding the crack growth rate, life-limiting factor, and delamination failures for various bio-fiber reinforced polymer composites. However, it helps to reduce the crack propagation and catastrophic failure of the material. The review also focuses on the fracture toughness properties of different bio-fiber reinforced Polymer composites This paper also highlights the effects of different bio-fibers and matrix on fracture toughness and possible techniques to improve fracture toughness. A brief overview of the fracture toughness of bio-fiber polymer reinforced composites is provided, which may provide insights into interlaminar strength and fracture behaviour of bio-fiber reinforced composites. Finally, the review concluded that the future direction of bio-composites in various dynamic applications has been discussed in this article. This review can help researchers and engineers design and develop bio-composite materials for dynamic applications.