Why are designers fascinated by flax and hemp fibre composites?

Flax and hemp fibres have been increasingly used as reinforcement in polymer composites. First, an overview is given of the technical arguments which convinced designers of consumer goods to use these fibres. In particular, their composites show higher specific stiffness than glass fibre composites in both tension and plate bending and only slightly lower values than carbon fibre composites in plate bending. Moreover, flax and hemp fibres possess a much higher vibration damping capacity, making them excellent candidates for applications in sporting goods or musical instruments. Secondly, the paper describes how designers relate to the non -technical characteristics of these natural fibres. Many concrete examples are given from different application domains in consumer goods: sports, mobility, music and sound, furniture and interior design. The fascination of designers for these bio-based materials combined with the recent introduction in the market of new, composites -oriented preforms of flax and hemp fibres, is rapidly increasing the number and variety of composite products using flax and hemp fibres as reinforcement. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.