Stiffness of bio-based polyamide 11 reinforced with softwood stone ground-wood fibres as an alternative to polypropylene-glass fibre composites

摘要

Polyolefin had been successfully reinforced with glass fibres and applied in the industry during the last decades. However there are unsolved processability and recyclability problems due to its fragility. There are also concerns related with the human health. This had promoted the interest towards more environmentally friendly and healthier reinforcements such as natural fibres. In addition, the oil origin of polyolefin increases the interest in researching greener polymer alternatives. This work proposes polyamide 11 (PA11) as a promising alternative to polypropylene or other commodity polyolefin. This paper studies the behaviour of the Young's modulus of natural fibre reinforced PA11 composites at different fibre contents. The composites were prepared, injection molded and characterized to tensile modulus. Afterwards a micromechanical modelling was performed using two models: Hirsch's and Tsai-Pagano's. The results allow proposing natural fibre reinforced PA11 composites as a suitable replacement to glass fibre reinforced polypropylene composites. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.