Reclaimed Carbon and Flax Fibre Composites: Manufacturing and Mechanical Properties

Abstract

The feasibility of using the HiPerDiF (high performance discontinuous fibre) method to manufacture highly aligned discontinuous fibres intermingled hybrid composites with flax and reclaimed carbon fibres (rCF), and the potential benefits of so doing, are investigated in this paper. It is demonstrated that, despite their hydrophilic nature, flax fibres are not affected by this water-based process. Intermingled flax/rCF hybrid composites are characterised in terms of their tensile and vibrational response. It is concluded that natural/rCF fibre hybrid composites can be a viable solution for those applications where a reduction in primary mechanical properties, e.g., stiffness and strength, is an acceptable trade-off for the enhancement of secondary properties, e.g., noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) mitigation, and the reduction of monetary costs.

Keywords

• sustainable composites
• reclaimed carbon fibres
• flax fibres
• hybrid composites
• aligned discontinuous fibre composites
• vibration damping