TY - GEN
T1 - Fire performance of flax laminates and their hybrids
AU - Rao, S.
AU - Bhardwaj, A.
AU - Beehag, A.
AU - Bhattacharyya, D.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - In the current age of growing environmental awareness, natural fibre composites have gained wide acceptance in various facets of engineering. However, in industries, such as aerospace and mining, their acceptance is primarily dependent on them meeting the stringent fire test requirements. In this paper, symmetric laminates consisting of only glass, glass/flax hybrid and only flax as reinforcements in thermoset matrices were tested for their time to ignition, heat release rate and smoke constituents as per standard ASTM E 1354 in a cone calorimeter. Four fire retardant versions of resin systems, were used in this study. The laminates were manufactured using wet hand-layup technique that was vacuum bagged and cured between hot platens of a hydraulic press. A constant fibre volume fraction of 0.5 for all the laminates was obtained by maintaining a constant laminate thickness of 4mm. The results from the cone calorimeter tests were compared to examine the influence of natural fibres on the fire properties of the laminates. It was observed that the degree of fire retardance in the polyester based composites decreased with the increase in the flax fibre content; however, in the modified urethane composites, flax fibre composites performed better by exhibiting higher ignition time compared to the hybrid and glass fibre composites. Another important observation was that the carbon monoxide emissions during testing decreased with the increase in flax content in the composites, no matter what resin system was used. These preliminary tests suggest that, by judiciously incorporating natural fibres in a synthetic system, a hybrid system could be designed to sustain loads in environments with high fire risks.
AB - In the current age of growing environmental awareness, natural fibre composites have gained wide acceptance in various facets of engineering. However, in industries, such as aerospace and mining, their acceptance is primarily dependent on them meeting the stringent fire test requirements. In this paper, symmetric laminates consisting of only glass, glass/flax hybrid and only flax as reinforcements in thermoset matrices were tested for their time to ignition, heat release rate and smoke constituents as per standard ASTM E 1354 in a cone calorimeter. Four fire retardant versions of resin systems, were used in this study. The laminates were manufactured using wet hand-layup technique that was vacuum bagged and cured between hot platens of a hydraulic press. A constant fibre volume fraction of 0.5 for all the laminates was obtained by maintaining a constant laminate thickness of 4mm. The results from the cone calorimeter tests were compared to examine the influence of natural fibres on the fire properties of the laminates. It was observed that the degree of fire retardance in the polyester based composites decreased with the increase in the flax fibre content; however, in the modified urethane composites, flax fibre composites performed better by exhibiting higher ignition time compared to the hybrid and glass fibre composites. Another important observation was that the carbon monoxide emissions during testing decreased with the increase in flax content in the composites, no matter what resin system was used. These preliminary tests suggest that, by judiciously incorporating natural fibres in a synthetic system, a hybrid system could be designed to sustain loads in environments with high fire risks.
KW - Cone caloriemetry
KW - Fire retardants
KW - Fire testing
KW - Hybrid composites
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84255189130&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.410.114
DO - 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.410.114
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84255189130
SN - 9783037853160
T3 - Advanced Materials Research
SP - 114
EP - 117
BT - Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Materials, PFAM XX
T2 - 20th International Symposium on Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Materials, PFAM XX
Y2 - 15 December 2011 through 18 December 2011
ER -