Fracture Characterization of Glass-Sheep Wool Fabric Reinforced Epoxy Hybrid Composite using Stacking Sequence

Abstract

Abstract

Fibre-reinforced composites are advance market share in structural applications, but further growth is restricted by their lack of toughness. Fibre hybridization is a hopeful approach to toughen composite materials. By combining two or more fibre types, these hybrid composites offer a better balance in mechanical properties than non-hybrid composites. The research and advancement in the area of natural fiber composites (NFC) are gaining more importance due to its eco-friendly, biodegradable, low cost and support their potential over an extensive variety of applications. This work has been carried out to evaluate the fracture characterization of glass-sheep wool fabric reinforced epoxy hybrid composite using different stacking. The hand lay-up technique was used for the fabrication of the composite material. The three different stacking sequences (GS1, GS2, and GS3) are used for experimentation. The tests were conducted to study the fracture properties such as compact tension (CT) and end notched flexural (ENF) as per ASTM standards. It reveals that, the effect of stacking sequence on the fracture toughness of the hybrid composite material is more and where fracture toughness is controlled by extreme layers of the composite. GS3 stacking sequence gives better results when compared to other stacking sequences. Based on the results, it is suggested that this hybrid glass/sheep wool fabric epoxy composite can be used for structural applications.

Keywords: Natural fiber, hybrid composites, stacking sequence, fracture toughness, hand lay-up technique

Cite this Article

Thopanna AN, Vijay Kumar TN, Bharath KN, Manjunath GB. Fracture Characterization of Glass-Sheep wool fabric reinforced Epoxy hybrid composite using stacking sequence. Journal of Instrumentation Technology & Innovations. 2018; 8(3): 8–14p.