Compressive behaviour of natural fibre composite

This paper presents findings from a comprehensive study aimed at the development of sustainable natural fibre composites (NFC) for civil engineering. It focuses on the compressive behaviour in an elastic region and post collapse behaviour of NFC tubes. Deformation and fracture behaviour were examined experimentally and an influence of the reinforcement arrangement and tube design on mechanical performance was analysed. The correlation between the reinforcement arrangement, material compressive strength and a fracture mode was established: The compressive modulus and ultimate stress of NFCs increased with the reinforcement orientation angle. The highest stress and modulus was observed for the reinforcement oriented at 10 to the main axis, which were four times higher than transversely oriented reinforcement. Four compression collapse modes were observed for the tested NFC tubes, namely microbuckling, diamond shape buckling, concertina shape buckling and progressive crushing, which are closely related to the geometries of tube architectures. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.