Fiber-reinforced composite

A fiber-reinforced composite (FRC) is a composite building material that consists of three components:[1][2] This is a type of advanced composite group, which makes use of rice husk, rice hull, rice shell, and plastic as ingredients.

This technology involves a method of refining, blending, and compounding natural fibers from cellulosic waste streams to form a high-strength fiber composite material in a polymer matrix.

FRC is high-performance fiber composite achieved and made possible by cross-linking cellulosic fiber molecules with resins in the FRC material matrix through a proprietary molecular re-engineering process, yielding a product of exceptional structural properties.

Through this feat of molecular re-engineering selected physical and structural properties of wood are successfully cloned and vested in the FRC product, in addition to other critical attributes to yield performance properties superior to contemporary wood.

This material, unlike other composites, can be recycled up to 20 times, allowing scrap FRC to be reused again and again.

The failure mechanisms in FRC materials include delamination, intralaminar matrix cracking, longitudinal matrix splitting, fiber/matrix debonding, fiber pull-out, and fiber fracture.

Although this figure illustrates a plate-like composite, the results that follow are equally applicable to fiber composites having similar phase arrangements.

Case I: Same stress, different strain A tensile force F is applied normal to the broad faces (dimensions Lx L) of the phases.

Case II: different stress, same strain Fibers that are aligned parallel to the tensile axis, the strains in both phases are equal (and the same as the composite strain), but the external force is partitioned unequally between the phases.

When the fiber is aligned parallel to the direction of the matrix and applied the load as the same strain case.

The uniaxial stress-strain response of a fiber composite can be divided into several stages.

In stage 1, when the fiber and matrix both deform elastically, the stress and strain relation is

In stage 3, when the matrix the fiber both deform plastically, the stress and strain relation is

Since some fibers do not deform permanently prior to fracture, stage 3 cannot be observed in some composite.

In stage 4, when the fiber has already become fracture and matrix still deforms plastically, the stress and strain relation is

However, it is not completely true, since the failure fibers can still carry some load.

For discontinuous fibers (also known as whiskers, depending on the length), tensile force is transmitted from the matrix to the fiber by means of shear stresses that develop along the fiber-matrix interface.

After only a very small strain, the magnitude of the shear stress at the fiber end becomes large.

This leads to two situation: fiber-matrix delamination or matrix having plastic shear.

remains constant and equals to stress in equal-strain condition.

For the mid-point of a fiber to be stressed to the equal-strain condition at composite fracture, its length must be at least

The fraction of the fiber length carrying stress

The above equations assumed the fibers were aligned with the direction of loading.

A modified rule of mixtures can be used to predict composite strength, including an orientation efficiency factor,

, which accounts for the decrease in strength from misaligned fibers.

If the fibers are perfectly aligned with the direction of loading

[3] Appreciable reinforcement can be provided by discontinuous fibers provided their lengths are much greater than the (usually) small critical lengths.

There are also applications in the market, which utilize only waste materials.

Its most widespread use is in outdoor deck floors, but it is also used for railings, fences, landscaping timbers, cladding and siding, park benches, molding and trim, window and door frames, and indoor furniture.

See for example the work of Waste for Life, which collaborates with garbage scavenging cooperatives to create fiber-reinforced building materials and domestic problems from the waste their members collect: Homepage of Waste for Life Adoption of natural fiber in reinforced polymer composites potentially to be used in automotive industry could significantly help developing a sustainable waste management.