Synthetic reinforced composites affect the
environment adversely and have become a global concern, causing increased
natural composite demand for sustainability and cost effectiveness. Glass is a
popular material that is highly consumed in reinforced composites for its
superior mechanical strength. As opposed to that, flax obtained from flax
stalks can be used as an alternative reinforcing material with synthetic fibers
to minimize manmade fiber consumption. Hence, this research work addresses a
few flax/glass-reinforced hybrid composites by using a thermoset polyester
matrix. Here, six categories of samples are made, like neat flax, neat glass,
and flax/glass fabric reinforced hybrid composite, followed by different
stacking layer sequences and hand layout techniques during processing.
Afterwards, the mechanical behavior, thermal stability, morphological behavior,
and water absorption of hybrid samples were investigated. Among the developed
samples, neat glass (NG) composite exhibits superior mechanical properties,
while neat flax (NF) shows the lowest result. It is apparent that the
mechanical properties and thermal stability of hybrid samples are in between NF
and NG because, by adding glass with flax fabric, the strength of hybrid
samples is increased. Moreover, it is noticeable that, due to multiple stacking
layers of flax and glass, hybrid 3 and hybrid 4 show better strength than consecutive single stacking layers in hybrid 1 and hybrid
2. Among all hybrid composites, the H4 shows
comparatively better mechanical and thermal properties due to having the glass
layers on the outermost surface. In summary, this research work demonstrated
the feasibility of flax fabric with glass fabric as a reinforced hybrid
composite that can be used in automobile inner bodies, household
furnishing, and home interior decoration.
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