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Assessing the feasibility of natural composite for structural applications

Assessing the feasibility of natural composite for structural applications
Assessing the feasibility of natural composite for structural applications

Composite materials are widely used for structural applications however, these materials can have an adverse environmental impact. Whilst a number of natural reinforcements show promise as replacements, with comparable specific properties to conventional fibres, there is a perceived high variability due to the inconsistencies at the fibre level and poor volume fractions reduce these properties at the laminate scale. Therefore, a reliability assessment of natural composite materials was performed to investigate the applicability of natural composites to structural applications. The analysis is performed using Monte Carlo simulations, to analyse the reliability and the structural integrity of a composite grillage under out-of-plane loading. At the structural scale, the results show that even if natural fibre reinforced composite cannot compete with conventional fibres structures, they demonstrate some potential for mass constrained applications due to their low density. The paper demonstrates that whilst it is unlikely that these materials will be chosen for primary structures it is a possibility that with improved production techniques, and a reduction of cost with increased up take, that these materials might provide a sustainable alternative in secondary structural applications.

Grillage structures, Natural fibres, Reliability analysis, Top-hat stiffeners
European Conference on Composite Materials
Blanchard, Jeanne
09d205df-4cf3-45ff-853e-4e524576791b
Sobey, Adam J.
e850606f-aa79-4c99-8682-2cfffda3cd28
Blake, James I.R.
6afa420d-0936-4acc-861b-36885406c891
Blanchard, Jeanne
09d205df-4cf3-45ff-853e-4e524576791b
Sobey, Adam J.
e850606f-aa79-4c99-8682-2cfffda3cd28
Blake, James I.R.
6afa420d-0936-4acc-861b-36885406c891

Blanchard, Jeanne, Sobey, Adam J. and Blake, James I.R. (2016) Assessing the feasibility of natural composite for structural applications. In ECCM 2016 - Proceeding of the 17th European Conference on Composite Materials. European Conference on Composite Materials..

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Composite materials are widely used for structural applications however, these materials can have an adverse environmental impact. Whilst a number of natural reinforcements show promise as replacements, with comparable specific properties to conventional fibres, there is a perceived high variability due to the inconsistencies at the fibre level and poor volume fractions reduce these properties at the laminate scale. Therefore, a reliability assessment of natural composite materials was performed to investigate the applicability of natural composites to structural applications. The analysis is performed using Monte Carlo simulations, to analyse the reliability and the structural integrity of a composite grillage under out-of-plane loading. At the structural scale, the results show that even if natural fibre reinforced composite cannot compete with conventional fibres structures, they demonstrate some potential for mass constrained applications due to their low density. The paper demonstrates that whilst it is unlikely that these materials will be chosen for primary structures it is a possibility that with improved production techniques, and a reduction of cost with increased up take, that these materials might provide a sustainable alternative in secondary structural applications.

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More information

Published date: 26 June 2016
Venue - Dates: 17th European Conference on Composite Materials, ECCM 2016, , Munich, Germany, 2016-06-26 - 2016-06-30
Keywords: Grillage structures, Natural fibres, Reliability analysis, Top-hat stiffeners

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 436330
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/436330
PURE UUID: a9e61c1b-4bdd-4c16-85e3-e3aace45effa
ORCID for Jeanne Blanchard: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9371-1992
ORCID for Adam J. Sobey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6880-8338
ORCID for James I.R. Blake: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-5291-8233

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 06 Dec 2019 17:30
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:51

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