Design of an impact resistant glass fibre/epoxy composites using short silk fibres

The prevailing utilisation of light and strong structural materials has led to an increasing demand to engineering industries on developing different types of advanced composites. Thus, the development of simple and low cost woven glass fibre composites with an improvement on their tensile and impact properties is suggested. In this paper, the hybridization of a glass fibre reinforced composite is achieved by using low cost short silk fibres as a medium to enhance its cross-ply strength. The comparison on the tensile and impact properties of the composite reinforced by the short silk fibre (with the content from 0.3 to 0.6 wt%) with a pristine glass fibre composite sample was conducted. Fracture surfaces were analysed by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Experimental results indicated that the maximum Young's modulus and ductility index (DI) of a silk reinforced composite increased by 50% and 75%, respectively as compared with the pristine one. Furthermore, the visual examination on drop-weight test samples proved that the impact resistance of the silk reinforced composite was better than that of the pristine sample as well. According to the results obtained, it was found that the addition of 0.4 wt% short silk fibre into glass fibre composite was shown to be the advisable reinforcement content to achieve better tensile and impact strengths. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.