Development and Evaluation of Mechanical Properties of Biodegradable PLA/Flax Fiber Green Composite Laminates

Biodegradable or Green composites are gaining much interest as they are environmental friendly and have the potential to replace traditional composites. In the present work, a green-biocomposite was developed, processed and evaluated as an alternative to traditional composite automotive components, using PLA (Poly Lactic Acid, a biodegradable thermoplastic extracted from natural sources such as corn starch), as the matrix and Flax fiber as reinforcement. The flax fiber surface was modified before fabrication by Silane chemical treatment to improve adhesion and wetting. PLA/Flax composites were fabricated by manual hot plate compression moulding using indigenously developed test-rig. The mechanical properties of the Flax/PLA biocomposite have been tested for varying fiber weight percentages of 7.9%, 13.6% and 17.6%. The results of these tests indicate an increase in mechanical properties like ultimate tensile strength for the composite with increase in fiber content and for treated fiber / PLA composite, it reduces in contrast. The flexural strength for these three compositions remains same. However, the compression strength of the composite with 13.6 wt. % treated fiber increased as compared to 7.9% and 17.6% fiber reinforced composite.The absorbed impact energy of the PLA/flax fiber composite laminate is in the range of 25 to 30 Joules.The adhesion between PLA and Flax fiber is observed to be uniform throughout the cross-section area for all the three compositions. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.