Impact and Flexural Testing of Jute and Flax Fiber Reinforced Composites Fabricated by VARTM Process

Abstract

This research presents the impact and flexural strength of jute and flax natural fiber-reinforced composites for some typical applications like leaf spring. Natural fibers have good strength to weight ratio, biodegradable, low cost and easily available. In this paper, two different natural fibers jute and flax were used for the manufacturing of composites by VARTM process and mechanical testing results are carried out as per the ASTM standard. The Impact and flexural testing are carried out for five and seven layers of jute and flax fiber-reinforced composites and the effect of fiber volume fraction and number of layers on impact and flexural strength are studied. Results show that the highest impact strength is found for flax 7 layer (44 J/m) and lowest for jute 5 layer (37 J/m). Flexural strength is found to be highest for flax 5 layer (177 MPa) and lowest for jute 7 layer (70 MPa). This research concludes that flax fiber reinforced composites show higher strength as compared to jute fiber-reinforced composites. The fiber volume fraction (FVF) increases by increasing the number of layers. Mechanical strength is directly proportional to the FVF of the composite material.