Mechanical and dynamic performance of woven flax/E-glass hybrid composites

Flax composites demonstrate superior damping properties to conventional fibres. These materials are already being utilised in some products but the mechanical properties they exhibit are too low for many structural applications. Hybridization of flax with higher strength fibres has been shown to yield materials, which balance damping and load carrying capabilities alongside improved environmental credentials for flax/carbon hybrids. However, the most used composite material is E-glass but the current literature does not facilitate the prediction of damping properties for these hybrid composites, where it is expected that they will behave differently due to the difference in material properties. The woven flax and E-glass fibres specimens embedded with epoxy resin are manufactured via resin infusion to understand the damping and mechanical properties possible from an industrial process and the dominant factors affecting them, rather than the relationships between individual variables and these properties. These experiments allow the hybrids to be profiled for the first time and it is observed that hybridization of flax and E-glass fibres results in an increase in damping, from 1.97% to 2.63% for the best hybrid, especially when the flax plies are placed on the outer skin, however the compromise in tensile properties is significant, from 473.28 MPa to 166.53 MPa.