Today's KNOWLEDGE Share : Composite failures aren’t just cracks

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share

📢Time to Get Technical...📢

Composite failures aren’t just cracks .They’re stories waiting to be read, That’s where fracture analysis comes in. 💥

A recent study dug deep into Mode II interlaminar fracture toughness in flax/basalt reinforced vinyl ester hybrid composites and the results are pretty eye-opening. 👀

Here’s the setup:

🔹 Four types of laminates made by vacuum-assisted resin infusion (from neat vinyl ester to stitched flax/basalt hybrids).

🔹 Tested under dry vs. wet conditions with 3-point-end-notched flexure (3ENF) tests.

🔹 Microscopic detective work using SEM & X-ray micro-CT to spot how cracks grow and laminates fail.

What they found 👉

✨ Hybridizing flax with basalt improves interlaminar fracture toughness (better resistance to delamination).

✨ Dry basalt/flax hybrids resisted crack propagation more effectively than flax-only composites.

✨ Stitching can change the fracture behavior (matrix cracking vs. fiber delamination).

Basically: basalt brings muscle to the mix, boosting performance where flax alone falls short. Check out the SEM shots below to see fracture mechanisms up close ...from shear kinks to matrix cracks. 🔬

Composite engineers: how much do you rely on hybrid reinforcement in your projects?

source : The Native Lab