Mechanical behavior of basalt fibers in a basalt-UP composite

With the increasing interest in sustainable solutions in material design in the last decade, research on natural materials (animal, vegetal or mineral) has increased at a rapid pace. Of these materials, Basalt Fibers for composite construction provide an interesting set of mechanical properties, equal or above to those of Glass Fibers, with advantages in terms of cost effectiveness and production to vegetable based Natural Fibers. Basalt fibers offer some advantages versus current materials, it is fireproof, requires no material addition, has better mechanical properties than most types of E-Glass, and it is cheaper than Carbon Fiber. This paper studies the mechanical properties of a Basalt Fiber composite in an Unsaturated Polyester matrix produced by Resin Transfer Molding (RTM), with the composites subjected to tensile, compression, shear and flexural tests. The results aligned with the predicted values by using the mixing rule, albeit with a high coefficient of variation, which microscopic analysis confirmed to arise from production issues with RTM.