Estimation of the tensile strength of an oriented flax fiber-reinforced polymer composite

Unidirectional orientation of natural fibers in a polymer composite ensures the highest efficiency of reinforcement. Flax fiber reinforcement is discontinuous due to limited fiber length and heterogeneous due to the presence of elementary fibers and their bundles. In order to assess the upper limit of tensile strength of such slightly misoriented, nominally UD natural fiber composite, a statistical strength model of continuous UD fiber reinforced composites is applied. It is found that the experimental strength of UD flax composites, produced from rovings or manually aligned fibers, approaches the theoretical limit only at relatively low fiber volume fraction ca. 0.2, being markedly below it at higher fiber content. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.