A study of the effect of surface treatments on the tensile strength of flax fibres: Part II. Application of Weibull statistics

The application of Weibull statistics for describing fibre strength is very popular among material scientists. However, although the weakest link model seems very attractive from a physical point of view, the mathematics involved are not so straight forward for all cases. In this study the effect of surface treatments upon the tensile strength of flax fibres is investigated. In part I the data were discussed in terms of Gaussian statistics, while in this paper (part II) the data are discussed in terms of Weibull statistics. Two different methods (the linear regression and the maximum likelihood) were employed in order to estimate the Weibull modulus (m) and the Weibull characteristic strength (σ0). The two methods yielded similar values for the Weibull modulus (m) and the Weibull characteristic strength (σ0). It was found that the surface treatments did not significantly change the tensile strength of flax fibres.