EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF PLANT FIBER COMPOSITES

Experiments of the moduli and the strengths of tensile,compression,shear and bending and the impact toughness were conducted for several kinds of plant fiber reinforced resin composites reported in Reference 1.Failure mechanism of the plant composites were analyzed by means of scanning electron microscopy(SEM) and acoustic emission(AE), Experimental data showed that, the mechanical properties tested here in for the plant composites were close to those of wood such as Korean pine and China fir,but better than those of fiberboard. The strengths of the plant composites were found dependent on the strengths of their constituents and the adhesion and binding force between fibers and matrix,fibers and fibers.