abstract
The growing demand for sustainable materials with competitive performance drives research into natural fiber-reinforced composites, a promising alternative to synthetics. Optimizing their properties and expanding applications depend on various factors, such as reinforcement configurations and architectures. Thus, investigating hybrid composites combining jute and flax is strategic for advancing composite materials knowledge and offering solutions to engineering challenges. This study examines the effects of unidirectional (UD) and twill flax reinforcements on the mechanical properties of interlaminated jute/flax hybrids produced by compression molding. Composites were developed with a fixed core of five layers of bidirectional jute fabric, symmetrically covered by one to three external UD or twill flax layers. The influence of flax fabric architecture and number of external layers was assessed by tensile, flexural, and impact tests using a neat jute composite as reference. Results showed that both fabric architecture and number of layers significantly affected mechanical properties. Tensile strength and stiffness increased nearly monotonically with more flax layers. Flexural tests revealed substantial improvements, with a plateau between two and three layers. Under impact, all hybrids outperformed neat jute, with three-layer samples achieving the best results. Overall, hybrids reinforced with UD flax exhibited superior performance across all properties. These findings highlight flax reinforcement's potential to enhance natural fiber composites for diverse applications.
keywords
IMPACT; TENSILE
subject category
Polymer Science
authors
Junior, RAA; De Queiroz, HFM; Banea, MD
our authors
Mariana Banea
Associate ProfessorProjects
Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies, CoLab (EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES)
Associated Laboratory CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (LA/P/0006/2020)
acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by the Brazilian Research Agencies: National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq)- Grant number 310268/2023-0. This work was developed within the scope of the project CICECO Aveiro Institute of Materials, UID/50011/2025 (DOI https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/50011/2025) & LA/P/0006/2020 (DOI https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0006/2020), financed by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC).