Pultrusion of a flax/polypropylene yarn

The present work reports the pultrusion of a flax reinforced polypropylene commingled yarn containing discontinuous flax and polypropylene fibers. This was the first attempt to pultrude this material. Rectangular cross-sectional profiles have been successfully produced using a self-designed pultrusion line. In a series of experiments carried out with yarns of two different flax fiber contents, the pultrusion parameters were varied. In particular, the preheating and die temperatures and also the pulling speed, which are the most relevant parameters regarding the potential future pultrusion of natural fiber composite profiles at industrial scale. A complete characterization of each profile was conducted in order to examine the influence of processing parameters on the profile quality. The mechanical properties were evaluated by performing three point bending as well as Charpy impact tests. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.