MECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF RECYCLED DENIM FIBRE COMPOSITES

Cotton is one of the oldest polymer composite reinforcements. There is considerable interest in denim twill composites for artisanal materials such as knife handles and guitar scratch plates, but as yet there has been little work to quantify the mechanical performance of the materials with a view to extending the areas of application. The focus in this research is to determine whether recycled denim cotton twill coupled with current commercial manufacturing techniques can be used to make practical composite materials, offering a cheaper replacement to glass or virgin natural fibre (flax) reinforcements in semi-structural applications. A wet lay-up vacuum consolidation process with epoxy resin is used to manufacture composite laminates. Glass was shown to provide the highest tensile and flexural strength with recycled denim showing the lowest. However recycled denim showed comparable values of tensile and flexural strength to that of other fibre reinforced polymer composites. This allows denim to offer a suitable replacement to glass fibre composites in application with a lower load bearing. Recycled denim also showed a reduction in cost when material weight is compared for the price paid.