Natural fibre composites: Comprehensive Ashby-type materials selection charts

• Comprehensive materials selection charts for PFRPs facilitating product design.
• General tensile mechanical property profiles for a variety of PFRPs.
• Design for optimal properties, minimal weight, minimal cost, and minimal eco-impact.
• Ashby charts comparing PFRPs with GFRPs and other engineering materials.
• Materials property chart for a fatigue-limited design.

To aid design engineers in closing the existing gap between current scientific knowledge and actual market applications of plant fibre reinforced plastics (PFRPs), this article provides comprehensive Ashby-type materials selection charts for PFRPs to facilitate product design and development. General tensile mechanical property profiles are presented for a variety of PFRPs to enable the design for (i) optimal stiffness and strength, (ii) minimal weight (i.e. optimal specific properties), (iii) minimal cost, and (iv) minimal eco-impact. A large database is used to capture the range in properties of different (i) reinforcements forms (short fibres: pellets and nonwovens; long fibres: multiaxials and unidirectionals), (ii) polymer matrices (thermoplastic and thermosetting), and (iii) manufacturing techniques (injection moulding, compression moulding, hand lay-up, vacuum infusion, resin transfer moulding and prepregging). As PFRPs are often viewed as alternatives to glass fibre composites (GFRPs), for demonstrative purposes the tensile properties of the various PFRPs are compared with similar GFRPs. Moreover, highlighting that other mechanical parameters may be critical performance indices for specific products and applications, a materials property chart for a fatigue-limited design is also produced.

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