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pps proceeding
Symposium: S06 - Biopolymers and Polymer from Renewable Resources
Poster Presentation
 
 

Development of cellulose based polymer composite with enhanced through-the-thickness properties

Hajlane Abdelghani (1)*, Kaddami Hamid (2), Joffe Roberts (1)

(1) Luleå University of Technology - Luleå - Sweden, (2) Cadi Ayyad University - Marrakech - Morocco

The environmental concerns and public awareness of potential problems associated with growing consumption of oil and petroleum based materials boosted research on natural fiber composites. In particular plant fibers with high content of cellulose (e.g. flax, hemp) are of great interest due to their high stiffness and strength. However, these fibers possess properties which hinder their as reinforcement for structural composites (e.g. limited fiber length, sensitivity to moisture, temperature, high variability of properties). Therefore, another cellulosic fiber has attracted attention - manmade Regenerated Cellulose Fiber (RCF). This fiber is continuous with well-defined, consistent geometry and properties, which makes it suitable reinforcement for composites. The proposed Master Thesis project is continuation of the work carried out at LTU on development of natural fiber composites for structural applications. It is well known that composites usually exhibit excellent in-plane properties (e.g. tensile stiffness and strength) which are controlled by fibers that may be assembled in various 2-D reinforcements (e.g. uni-directional fabric, weave, non-crimp fabric). However, through-the-thickness properties are relatively weak because they are governed by the properties of the resin and in large extend by the strength of fiber/matrix interface. The objective of this study is to use hierarchical cellulosic reinforcement consisting of micro-sized RCF and cellulose nano-crystals to create composite with enhanced properties and durability to damage. The cellulose nano-crystals are grafted on the RCF assembled into non-crimp fabric in order to enhance the intra- and inter-laminar properties of the composite. Thus, the through-thickness performance is expected to be improved due to the nano-crystal network created on (and in between to) fiber.