Improvement of mechanical performance of industrial hemp fibre reinforced polylactide biocomposites

In this work, mechanical properties of chemically treated random short fibre and aligned long hemp fibre reinforced PIA composites were investigated over a range of fibre content (0-40 wt.%). It was found that tensile strength, Young's modulus and impact strength of short hemp fibre reinforced PLA composites increased with increased fibre content. Alkali and silane fibre treatments were found to improve tensile and impact properties which appears to be due to good fibre/matrix adhesion and increased matrix crystallinity. A 30 wt.% alkali treated fibre reinforced PEA composite (PLA/ALK) with a tensile strength of 75.5 MPa, Young's modulus of 8.18 GPa and impact strength of 2.64 kJ/m(2) was found to be the best. However, plane-strain fracture toughness and strain energy release rate decreased with increased fibre content. The mechanical properties of the PLA/ALK composites were increased further due to alignment of long fibres. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.