On the use of single fibre composites testing to characterise the interface in natural fibre composites.

In recent years, natural fibre composites have received considerable attention as a serious contender to replace glass fibres in composite material applications. One of the key aspects in composite materials is the interface between the reinforcing fibres and the matrix and a critical assessment of the interfacial bond is needed for a successful design of the final component. Natural fibres possess many intriguing advantages over man-made fibres such as glass, but they also present serious difficulties, especially in terms of material heterogeneity and more specifically in terms of fibre diameter. In this sense, most of the traditional methods for interfacial characterisation are difficult to apply, since the required data reduction involves the use of stress analysis or fracture mechanics approaches in which the fibre diameter is a critical parameter. In the present study, interfacial characterisation is discussed for flax fibre/polypropylene composites and a sensitivity analysis is presented for the single fibre fragmentation test. The results indicate that traditional stress analysis fails to correctly assess the interface, whilst a statistical based data analysis can overcome the fibre heterogeneity problem.