SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - 31
Feature Article
Figure 6. Silk composite laminates: Nonwoven mat
(left) and biaxial woven fabric (right) reinforcements.
Our progress in understanding the critical design
considerations for SFRPs enabled us to manufacture
high-fibre volume fraction nonwoven (i.e. nominally
2D randomly-oriented fibre) and plain-woven silk
composites. Subsequently, we conducted a crosscomparative study evaluating the properties of
nonwoven and woven silk composites against similar
flax and glass composites, which is briefly presented
henceforth.
Experimental
All composite laminates were manufactured
using vacuum infusion in a rigid aluminum mould.
Silk composites were fabricated using specially
produced nonwoven mat and biaxial woven fabric
reinforcements at fibre volume fractions of 36% and
45%, respectively (Figure 6)17. The nonwoven silk
mat is unique as the low-cost fabrication process
employed (described in17,18) preserves the continuous
length of the silk fibres, by relying on the melt flow
of the already present natural binder (namely,
sericin) in the cocoons to binds adjacent shells. The
epoxy resin employed (Epikote RIMR135/RIMH137)
had high strength (60-75 MPa) and stiffness (2.73.2 GPa), but also a high failure strain (12-16%) for
compatibility with ductile silk fibres17. Nonwoven
and woven flax and glass fibre reinforced composites
were also fabricated. While the fibre content of the
flax and glass composites were in a similar range to
the silk composites, the composite densities were in
the following order: silk ≤ flax < glass. We measured
the tensile, flexural, interlaminar shear, and toughness
(Charpy impact and bullet-impact) properties of the
composites.
Results and Discussion
The flexural stress-strain curves in Figure 7
illustrate the load-bearing behaviour of the silk
composites in comparison to the flax and glass fibre
composites. Clearly, in terms of absolute flexural
properties, silk composites lie comfortably between
glass and flax composites (and expectedly, woven
composites lie above nonwoven composites). Notably,
the woven silk composite demonstrated high fracture
strain capacities, which may be particularly attractive
in applications where progressive failure is required.
This is unlike the relatively brittle nature of flax and
glass fibres and their composites.
Proteinaceous silk fibres have a lower density than
both lignocellulosic flax fibres and inorganic glass
Figure 7. Typical stress-strain profiles comparing flexural and specific flexural properties of nonwoven and woven silk,
flax and E-glass composites.
SAMPE Journal, Volume 52, No. 3, May/June 2016
31
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016
Contents
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - Cover1
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - Cover2
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - Contents
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - 2
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - 3
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - 4
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - 5
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - 6
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SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - Cover3
SAMPE Journal - May/June 2016 - Cover4
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