• Composites Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.41-49
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• 2009

Natural fiber reinforced composites are emerging as low-cost, lightweight, recyclable, and eco-friendly materials. These are biodegradable and non-abrasive. Due to eco-friendly and biodegradable characteristics of natural fibers, they are being considered as potential candidates to replace the conventional fibers. The chemical, mechanical, and physical properties of natural fibers have distinct features depending upon the cellulose content of the fibers which varies from fiber to fiber. The mechanical properties of composites are influenced mainly by the adhesion between matrix and fibers. Several chemical and physical modification methods of fiber surface were incorporated to improve the tiber-matrix adhesion resulting in the enhancement of mechanical properties of the composites. This paper outlines the works reported on natural tiber reinforced composites with special reference to the type of fibers, polymer matrix, processing techniques, treatment of fibers, and fiber-matrix interface.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.92-95
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• 2004

Interfacial shear strength (IFSS) of environmentally- friend natural fiber reinforced polymer composites playa very important role in controlling the overall mechanical properties. In this work the IFSS of Ramie and Kenaf fibers/epoxy systems were evaluated using the combination of micromechanical technique, microdroplet test to find out an optimal condition in accordance with final purpose by comparing to each other. Clamping effect on fiber elongation was determined as well. In addition, the mechanical properties of the natural fibers were investigated using single fiber tensile test and analyzed statistically by both uni- and bimodal Weibull distributions. Microfailure modes of different natural fiber structures were observed using optical microscope.

• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.83-94
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• 2007

Woven sisal textile fiber reinforced composites were used to evaluate fracture toughness, tensile and three-point bending. The water absorption testing of all specimens was repeated five times in this study. All specimens were immersed in pure water during 9 days at room temperature, and dried in 1 day at $50^{\circ}C$. Two kinds of polymer matrices such as epoxy and vinyl-ester were used. Fractured surfaces were taken to study the failure mechanism and fiber/matrix interfacial adhesion. It is shown that it can be enhanced to improve their mechanical performance to reveal the relationship between fracture toughness and water absorption fatigue according to different polymer matrices. Water uptake of the epoxy composites was found to increase with cycle times. Mechanical properties are dramatically affected by the water absorption cycles. Water-absorbed samples showed poor mechanical properties, such as lower values of maximum strength and extreme elongation. The $K_{IC}$ values demonstrated a decrease in inclination with increasing cyclic times of wetting and drying for the epoxy and vinyl-ester.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.31-46
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• 2019

In the present study, the various dynamic properties of MWCNT embedded fiber reinforced polymer uniform and tapered composite (MWCNT-FRP) plates are investigated. Various configurations of a tapered composite plate with ply-drop off and uniform composite plate have been considered for the development of the finite element formulation and experimental investigations. First order shear deformation theory (FSDT) has been used to derive the kinetic and potential energy equations of the hybrid composite plates by including the effect of rotary inertia, shear deformation and non-uniformity in thickness of the plate. The governing equations of motion of FRP composite plates without and with MWCNT reinforcement are derived by considering a nine- node rectangular element with five degrees of freedom (DOF) at each node. The effectiveness of the developed finite element formulation has been demonstrated by comparing the natural frequencies and damping ratio of FRP composite plates without and with MWCNT reinforcement obtained experimentally. Various parametric studies are also performed to study the effect of CNT volume fraction and CNT aspect ratio of the composite plate on the natural frequencies of different configurations of CNT reinforced hybrid composite plates. Further the forced vibration analysis is performed to compare the dynamic response of the various configurations of MWCNT-GFRP composite plate with GFRP composite plate under harmonic excitations. It was observed that the fundamental natural frequency and damping ratio of the GFRP composite plate increase approximately 8% and 37% respectively with 0.5wt% reinforcement of MWCNT under CFCF boundary condition. The natural frequencies of MWCNT-GFRP hybrid composite plates tend to decrease with the increase of MWCNT volume fraction beyond 2% due to agglomeration of CNT's. It is also observed that the aspect ratio of the CNT has negligible effect on the improvement of dynamics properties due to randomly orientation of CNT's.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.118-126
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• 2017

In a natural fiber-reinforced composite material, many studies have been devoted to improving the interfacial adhesion between natural fiber and polymer matrix and the composite properties through various fiber surface modifications. In the present study, waste wool-reinforced polypropylene matrix composites were fabricated by compression molding and their mechanical and impact properties were characterized. As a result, the tensile and flexural properties and the impact strength of waste wool/polypropylene composites strongly depended on the treatment medium, alkali treatment with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and silane treatment with 3-glycidylpropylsilane(GPS). The composite with waste wool by silane treatment exhibited higher mechanical properties and impact resistance than that by alkali treatment. The fracture surfaces of the composites support qualitatively the increased properties, showing the improved interfacial bonding between the waste wool and the polypropylene matrix.

• Composites Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.47-58
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• 1999

This paper describes the results of experiments to analyze the free vibration of the laminated composite and hybrid composite plates with various shapes and boundary conditions. The materials of specimens were the carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), the glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP), the GFRP-Aluminum hybrid composite and the CFRP-CFRP hybrid composite. The natural frequencies and nodal patterns of plates with various shapes were experimentally obtained by impact exciting test using an impact hammer and an accelerometer. The experimental results were presented with normalized frequency parameters. The effects of composite material properties, fiber orientation angles, various geometrical shapes and boundary conditions on the vibration characteristics of composite plates were evaluated. To compare and verify these experimental results, the finite element analysis was carried out, and was well agreed with experimental results.

• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.283-298
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• 2007

Environment-friendly composites reinforced with bagasse fiber (BF), a kind of natural fiber as the remains from squeezed sugarcane, were fabricated by injection molding and press molding. As appropriate matrices for injection molding and press molding, polypropylene (PP) and polycaprolactone-cornstarch (PCL-C) were selected, as a typical recyclable resin and biodegradable resin, respectively. The mechanical properties of BF/PP composites were investigated in view of fiber mass fraction and injection molding conditions. And the mechanical properties and the biodegradation of BF/PCL composites were also evaluated. In the case of injection molding, the flexural modulus increased with an increase in fiber mass fraction, and the mechanical properties decreased with an increase in cylinder temperature due to the thermal degradation of BF. The optimum conditions increasing the flexural properties and the impact strength were $90^{\circ}C$ mold temperature, 30 s injection interval, and in the range of 165 to $185^{\circ}C$ cylinder temperature. On the other hand, as to BF/PCL-C fully-green composites, both the flexural properties and the impact strength increased with an increase in fiber mass fraction. It is considered that the BF compressed during preparation could result in the enhancement in mechanical properties. The results of the biodegradability test showed the addition of BF caused the acceleration of weight loss, which increased further with increasing fiber content. This reveals that the addition and the quantities of BF could promote the biodegradation of fully-green composites.

• Composites Research
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.50-55
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated the effect of fiber alignment in helicoidal structure on the mechanical properties of biomimetic fiber-reinforced composites. Using finite element analysis, circular biomimetic fiber composites were designed and studied. Various amounts of pressure loads were applied to a surface of the composites, and then bending and failure behaviors of the composites were analyzed. The results showed various failure morphologies according to the orientation of the fibers, and it turned out that the fiber alignment in helicoidal structure significantly improved the bending strength of the composite under pressure loading. This was because the fiber alignment in various directions for each layer dispersed effectively the fracture energy from the external load into multiple directions.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.79-92
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• 2015

In this study, free vibration analyses of symmetric laminated cantilever and simply supported damaged composite beams are investigated by using finite element method (FEM). Free vibration responses of damaged beams are examined using Euler Bernoulli beam and classical lamination theories. A computer code is developed by using MATLAB software to determine the natural frequencies of a damaged beam. The local damage zone is assumed to be on the surface lamina of the beam by broken fibers after impact. The damaged zone is modeled as a unidirectional discontinuous lamina with $0^{\circ}$ orientations in this study. Fiber volume fraction ($v_f$), fiber aspect ratio ($L_f/d_f$), damage length ($L_D$) and its location (${\lambda}/L$), fiber orientation and stacking sequence parameters effects on natural frequencies are investigated. These parameters are affected the natural frequency values significantly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.11-14
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• 2000

This paper presents the vibration control of a glass-fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite beam with a distributed PVDF sensor and piezo-ceramic achlator. The three types of different controllen which are PID, H$\infty$ , and p-synthesis ontrollcr are employed to achieve vibration suppression in the transient vibration of composite beam. In the H$\infty$ , controller design, 1st and 2nd natural frequencies are considered in the modeling, because robust control theory which has robustness to struchred uncertainty is adopled Lo suppress the vibration. If the controller designed by H$\infty$ , theory does not satisfy control performance, it is improved by $\mu$ -synthesis method with D-K iteration so that the$\mu$-contoller based on the structured singular value satisfies the nominal performance and robust performance Simulations and experiments were carried out with the designed controllers m order to demonstrate the suppression efficiency of each controller.