Fabrication and Characterization of Lightweight Engineered Polypropylene Composites Using Silica Particles and Flax Woven Comingled Structure

The focus of the current study was the fabrication of woven comingled fabrics using flax and polypropylene yarns to improve the impregnation of flax reinforcing yarn in the polypropylene matrix. Hollow glass microspheres (HGM) as fillers were incorporated to tailor the mechanical properties of the resultant comingled composites. The dip and dry method was used to deposit the HGM on these comingled fabrics to achieve uniform distribution of hollow silica particles. Cross-ply composites were fabricated by these comingled fabrics using compression moulding technique. The mechanical properties were measured in terms of tensile, flexural and impact strength. Furthermore, the effect of HGM loading (1.5 and 3%) on mechanical properties was studied and compared with control composites prepared without HGM. It was observed that 1.5% inclusion of HGM had imparted an increase of 13.8 and 5.6% in the tensile strength and modulus respectively by enhancing the brittleness of the composites. However, a further increase in the HGM content from 1.5 to 3% had exhibited a decline of 10.2 and 8.8% in the tensile strength and modulus owing to the agglomeration of silica particles. A similar trend was observed in the flexural properties of the laminates. While, an increment of 10.4% and 18.2% was observed in the impact strength of the fabricated composite laminates by the loading of 1.5% and 3% HGM respectively.