Quantitative non-destructive characterization (NDC) of plant fibre composites

Abstract

Composites made of plant fibres offer a new, environmentally attractive supplement to traditional glass fibre composite materials. Plant fibre composites may have similar mechanical properties as conventional (e.g. glass fibre) composites, with a lower impact strength. Since plant fibre composites constitute a relatively new group of materials, the limitations imposed on the mechanical performance due to flaws are not well known. The subject of this article is the investigation of the structure, the homogeneity and the mechanical properties of jute fibre based composites, and the correlation to quantitative data derived from X-radiography and ultrasonic scanning. The results indicates that parameters such as fibre orientation and fibre volume fraction are very important concerning sample tensile strength. These parameters can be assessed by the considered QNDC techniques. It is also shown that the samples are relatively homogeneous, and that the limitation on mechanical performance cannot by the considere...