Establishing a new Forming Limit Curve for a flax fibre reinforced polypropylene composite through stretch forming experiments

Wentian Wang*, Adrian Lowe, Seb Davey, Nima Akhavan Zanjani, Shankar Kalyanasundaram

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    29 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In developing an understanding of the failure in natural fibre reinforced polymer composites, the failure limits of this class of the material system are required. It is found that the conventional Forming Limit Curve is not suitable to predict the failure initiated in the natural fibre composite as principal strains cannot differentiate the strain on the flax fibres and the polypropylene matrix. This study proposes a new Forming Limit Curve for the composite which expresses limiting fibre strain as a function of forming mode depicted by the ratio of minor strain to major strain. The new Forming Limit Curve, along with the Maximum Strain failure criterion have been successfully implemented in FEA simulations, and numerical simulations suggest that the former is more accurate. The current work provides an innovative method to predict the onset of failure in natural fibre composites, which can be applied in composite forming and structural design.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)114-123
    Number of pages10
    JournalComposites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing
    Volume77
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 6 Jul 2015

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