Project Abstract

Fibre-reinforced composite is a versatile engineering material with good mechanical and load-bearing abilities. Despite their high strength, they are generally known to be brittle. Pseudo-ductility can be produced in a composite by devising a gradual subcritical progressive damage process, such that it exhibits yielding and strain hardening like ductile metals, which can serve as a warning sign with detectable damage before final failure.

Electrospinning is a straightforward method to fabricate nanofibers from polymer solutions. These electrospun nanofibers have unique characteristics such as high specific surface area, easy processability, and scaling-up ability that make them attractive candidates as reinforcements. In recent decades, concerns over the environmental situation have led to the demand to introduce green polymers. In this project, we aim to produce electrospun nanofibers using environmentally friendly polymers from polylactide (PLA) and natural rubber (NR) and composites using environmentally friendly resin.

We propose to exploit the elasticity of the electrospun nanofiber to generate pseudo-ductility in a hybrid fibre composite to improve its damage tolerance.