Study on structural design and analysis of flax natural fiber composite tank manufactured by vacuum assisted resin transfer molding

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the use of naturally sourced fibers for use in composites design and manufacture. In this study, an investigation on mechanical properties of flax/vinyl ester natural fiber composite was performed as a precedent study on the design of eco-friendly structure using flax/vinyl ester composite. A Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding(VARTM) manufacturing method was adopted for manufacturing the flax fiber composite specimen. The mechanical properties of the manufactured flax composites were compared with flax composite data cited from some references. Based on this, structural design of chemical storage tank for agricultural vehicle was performed using flax/vinyl ester. After structural design and analysis, the resin flow analysis of the VARTM manufacturing method was performed. Through the structural test, it is confirmed that the designed chemical storage tank is acceptable for structural safety and stability. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.