Numerical investigation of mechanical properties of hybrid fiber reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

The fiber reinforced polymer composites replacing traditional materials due to its very good mechanical properties, strength to weight ratio and easily available. The fibers are further classified into two types namely, synthetic and natural, Glass, Carbon, Kevlar etc., have classified as synthetic fibers, similarly, natural fibers namely, Abaca, hemp, sisal, etc. Both fibers having both advantages and disadvantages. In this work, numerically analyzed the mechanical characterization of hybrid composite consist of synthetic and natural fibers using ANSYS software. Totally six natural and synthetic fibers have chosen for analysis namely, Flax, Glass, Hemp, Abaca, Carbon and Kevlar. The total layers six with 6 mm thickness has been used to perform the tensile, flexural and impact test using ANSYS Workbench 2020 R2. The results shows that, Flax/Glass has high tensile strength compared to other combination of composites. In flexural test, Hemp/Kevlar obtained the highest value among other combinations. Impact test shows the Abaca/Carbon has highest impact strength compare to others. So, the higher mechanical properties have been obtained in the order of natural, mixed, and synthetic fiber based composites.