NATURAL FIBER COMPOSITES IN AEROSPACE INDUSTRY

Mohd Afzainizam Aziz Departrment of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract While natural fiber composites may be viewed with as a step back compare to the usage of the synthetic/carbon based fiber in the aerospace industry, the research and development of the natural fiber composites in other industry such as automotive, construction and others have had a tremendous progress and improvement in applying the latest method and widen the usage of the natural fiber composites. As these progress in the research and the development of the application of the natural fiber composites in other industry, it will help in enhancing the properties of the natural fiber composites in order for it to be apply in the aerospace industry that requires a lighter and cheaper material for the industry to grow further.

Keywords: natural fiber, natural composite, aerospace, aircraft, application, structure

Introduction In the next century, the advancement of the aerospace industry will be depending on the advancement in the material that is important to the, both engines and airframes components. Basically the most important characteristics of the future material in this industry is down to the next four words, stronger, stiffer, hotter and lighter [01][02][03]. Furthermore, the advanced materials for aerospace applications in this twenty-first century will require a total engineering approach involving the considerations such as life prediction, producibility, durability, reliability, inspectability, maintainability and never to forget the cost which is affordability[02][37].

Aerospace Industry As we push the limit in the advancement in the aerospace industry, at a higher and higher temperatures, the current traditional metals reach their useable strength limit as in Figure 1 [01]. Therefore we have been looking the other alternative material such as ceramics and intermetallics.

Figure 1: Candidate airframe materials capabilities The operational speed in the aerospace industry have increased dramatically, especially in the jet fighters, rokets and also commercial aircraft. In this case, the material that has been used to build the structure of the aircraft have withstand beyond 200C. Hence the cost of building a new aircraft increase as the performance of the material increase. That is the reason that we have improved until now developing a higher temperature composites for the construction of the airframes and the engines [01]. Today, aircraft have to operate over a broader persistence, higher load factors, higher altitude and higher maximum speed. In this case, the major part of the new material in the structural of any aircraft is the weight reduction as in Figure 2 [01].

Figure 2: Trends in structural weight reduction for fighter aircraft, showing the significance of new and improved materials In brief, newer aircraft will be required to fly higher, faster and for a longer period of time. So these aircraft will have to be more durable, easy to maintain and cost effective compare to the current technology. In the airframe arena, platforms of the future will include the fighter, bomber, and transport and will also include supersonic varieties as well as transatmospheric vehicles such as the space hardware. Engines must be of higher thrust-to-weight ratio which will necessitate, in addition has the cost advantage over organic composites[02]. . We can say that the aerospace material is entering a new era which is the era of engineered materials. Since the aim of achieving a low melting point, low reactivity materials, the industry is more rapidly looking towards the organix materials than with metals. We will have the best material been used for a specific purpose or application[02]. Ceramics Ceramics have been defined as materials which are neither metals nor polymers. More strictly they are compounds formed with a strong hybrid ionic-covalent bond. This bonding gives ceramics their attractive ability to withstand heat and chemical attack but also imposes on ceramics their brittleness[01][03]. Metals Metals are generally ductile, reasonably resistant to temperature and environment, and of moderate strength. The crystalline structure of metals, in combination with defects such as dislocations, plays a major role in determining the mechanical behaviour[01][03]. Composites

Composites are multicomponent materials designed to achieve a combination of mechanical properties superior to the individual constituents. They can be polymer, ceramic or metal base, reinforced with particles or fibers of a second material[01][03]. Organic (Polymer) Composites These are organic polymers which are reinforced with short or continuous fibers to provide added strength or stiffness. Advanced composites exhibit high levels of mechanical properties, specifically strength and stiffness. Generally the advanced composites are expensive and typically contain a large percentage of high performance continuous fibers such as high strength glass, graphite, aramid or other organic fiber[01][03]. Defining Natural Fibers The function of the natural fiber composites (NFC) as the reinforcement of the composites has grabbed quite an attention by from the academic and industry sectors as the NFC posses a great advantage over the synthetic fibers. There are many types of natural fibers have been identify for the use of the NFC study including flax, hemp, jute straw, wood, rice husk, wheat, barley, oats, rye, cane (sugar and bamboo), grass, reeds, kenaf, ramie, oil palm empty fruit bunch, sisal, coir, water, hyacinth, pennywort, kapok, paper mulberry, raphia, banana fiber, pineapple leaf fiber and papyrus[05][34]. The full classification of the NFC can be showed as in the Figure 3.

Figure 3: Natural Fiber Composites Classification

Chemical Composition Of Natural Fiber The chemical composition of natural fibers varies depending upon the type of fibers. The chemical composition as well as the structure of the plant fibers is fairly complicated [04][11]. Plant fibers are a composite material designed by nature. The fibers are basically a rigid, crystalline cellulose microfibril-reinforced amorphous lignin and/or with hemicellulosic matrix. Mechanical Properties Of Natural Fibers Depending on the chemical and structural composition, the mechanical properties and physical properties of natural fibers differ from the aspect of the type of the fiber and the growth condition. Mechanical properties [11] of plant fibers are much lower when compared to those of the most widely used competing reinforcing glass fibers (Table 1). However, they are low in density and comparable to the strength and stiffness value of the glass fibers [07][08][09][12] [28]. Table 1: A few typical mechanical and physical properties of natural fibers compared to their commercial and aerospace counterparts

Advantages/Disadvantages Of Natural Fiber Recently NFC have been attracted a great attention of the researchers because of their advantages over the other established materials in the aerospace industry. Firstly, they are environmentally friendly and renewable source. They are abundantly and fully biodegradable which can be composed at the end of their life cycle. Secondly, the production of the NFC requires little energy and naturally using CO2 while giving back the oxygen to the environment [17][32]. Thirdly, NFC basically is low specific weight, resulting in a higher specific strength and stiffness comparing to the glass fiber. Fourthly, production of the NFC involving an investment at a lower cost which makes the material an interesting product for a low wage nation. In this case, they also have a huge economic interest in the industry[06][35]. Fifth, because they are natural, NFC has a characteristic of reducing wear of tooling, a healthier working condition, and no skin irritation comparing the available material on the market[04]. Lastly, NFC has better thermal and acoustic insulating properties than the current material in the industry right now. However, giving the advantages of the NFC, they have a several bottlenecks as well [06]. NFC does have a poor wet ability which means that incompatibility with some polymeric matrices and high moisture absorption [04][09]. Composite materials made with the use of unmodified plant fibers frequently exhibit unsatisfactory mechanical properties. Mechanical properties of natural fibers also are much lower than those of glass [08][09][10].

Influence Of The Preparation On The Properties Of Natural Fibers The natural fiber is prepared in the form of flax. So the plants are pulled as the flax has reached maturity, and will go through a process known as retting which is a controlled decay and separation at which the cementing substances connecting the bast with other plant parts are decomposed by microbes. Depending on the weather, this process would take from 3 to 5 weeks so that the mechanical processing can be started [13]. As shown in Figure 4, needle felt nonwovens from retted flax generally give a better reinforcement than fleeces from green flax (different states of retting were not examined), since a retting process leads to finer fibers and therefore to a larger surface (= contact surface) and a better adhesion of fibers and matrices. Removing the pectin (watery cleaning) improves the reinforcing effect only insignificantly [13][27].

Figure 4: Mechanical properties from bending tests of natural fiber composites made from differently prepared flax fibers [21] Technological requirements for biopolymers Frequently, polymers from renewable resources do not sufficiently fulfil the requirements to be used as matrices in natural fiber composites. In particular, they show either too high values of elongation at failure, or their rheological behaviour is a strong restriction for the application in natural fiber composites. An essential requirement for a good fiber matrix adhesion is an optimised impregnation of the reinforcing system. In order to evaluate the degree or quality of impregnation of composite plates, the well-established ultrasonic test method is used. As the specimens are exposed to water during testing, and some biopolymers are critical to moisture, this may cause a greater rate of swelling compared with petrochemical matrix systems of classic composites [13][27]. 7

Manufacture Of Structural Components The manufacture of composite parts by pressing shall be presented in the following. This technology is comparable to the well-known pressing process of glass mat reinforced thermoplastics (GMT). Here, thermally and mechanically pre-compacted semi products from the comingled, film-stacking procedure and powder impregnation are used, as well as prepregs from the wet impregnation (Figure 5) [13][14]. Figure 5: Thermal moulding process for the manufacture of components

As above, the prepregs together with the thermoplastic matrix are heated and compacted under little pressure. Later on, the mould softened or plasticized and the semi-products are pressed to a structural part which is cooled down in the mould in order to fix its shape. On the other side, prepregs with thermosetting plastic resins which are flexible at room temperature are crosslinked during the moulding at raised temperature [23][29]. Subsequently, the component hardens during the pressing process so that no further moulding is possible. In Figure 6, selected natural fiber composites are compared with glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP), regarding the tensile properties. This comparison shows that the properties of GFRP can almost be achieved at the same fiber content. With respect to the density of natural fibers of approximately 1500 kg/m (far below approx. 2500 kg/m of the glass fibers) a higher fiber content at the same structural weight can be achieved with natural fiber composites, resulting in a higher reinforcement [14].

Figure 6: Tensile properties of selected natural fiber composites with nonwovens reinforcement from natural fibers [28] Based on commonly used procedures in composite technology, manufacturing techniques for the production of natural fiber composites are developed, analysed, and optimised. These are especially the press technique, hand lay-up, filament winding technique, and pultrusion, which are tested with only slight modifications for the manufacture of components. To take advantage of the anisotropy of the fiber reinforced composites, unidirectional (UD) fiber reinforced laminates or non crimp fabrics have to be applied. For minor requirements in terms of mechanical properties, nonwovens are used as reinforcements. Figure 7 shows the results of the tensile tests of unidirectional fiber reinforced natural fiber composites in comparison with GFRP [13][22][28].

FFigure 7: Tensile properties of selected unidirectional fiber reinforced natural fiber composites (standardised, specific data)

Manufacturing Processes 9

In this paragraph the most commonly used manufacturing processes are introduced. Although many variants on these techniques exist, this overview gives a good indication of production possibilities. Hand Laminating The fibers, usually mats, are cut and placed in a mould, see Figure 8. The resin is applied by rollers. One option is to cure while using a vacuum bag, then its called vacuum bagging. By applying vacuum, excess air is removed and the atmospheric pressure exerts pressure to compact the composite [22][37].

Figure 8: Hand laminating As shown in Figure 9, is a sample product which is a boat hull. The main advantages of this method are the high flexibility and also the process is simple involving a low cost and cheap tool. However, it also have some drawback such as long production time, the labour intensive factor and low possibilities for automating the process [35].

Figure 9: Example of boat hull Resin Injection Techniques The fiber mats are placed inside a mould. In case of Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM), this mould consists of 2 solid parts as in Figure 10, whereas with vacuum injection a single solid mould and a foil are used, see Figure 11. A tube connects the mould with a supply of liquid resin, which is pumped or transferred through the mould, impregnating the fibers. After curing the mould is opened and the product is removed [25][31][33].

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Figure 10: Resin Transfer Moulding Principle Figure 11: Vacuum injection of a boat hull The big advantage is the capability of rapid manufacture of large, complex, high-performance structures[20]. Hot press methods Composite pre-forms (already mixed resin and fibers) are inserted in a mould and are cured using pressure and heat. Various methods exist. With injection moulding, resin granules and short fibers are mixed and transported to the mould by a spindle, see Figure 12. In these way very complex products, like housings of telephones, TVs, cameras and keyboard parts can be made [22][26].

Figure 12: Injection Moulding Filament winding Filament winding is a process in which continuous fibers or tows are wound over a rotating mandrel. They can be resin-impregnated before, during or after placement. The advantages of filament winding are the repetitiveness of an accurate fiber placement, the use of continuous fibers resulting in high strength and the possibility to construct rather large structures. The disadvantages are the requirement of a removable mandrel and the hard to define outer surface [17][26]. Pultrusion Pultrusion is a continuous process to manufacture composite profiles at any length. The impregnated fibers are pulled through a hole (the heated mandrel), which is shaped according 11

to the desired cross-section of the product, see Figure 13. The resulting profile is shaped until the resin is dry. The advantages are the manufacturing of thin-wall shapes of endless length, large variety in cross-sectional shape and the possibility for a high degree of automation. Disadvantage is the restriction to one cross-section, shape variation in transverse direction is not possible [22][24].

Figure 13: Pultrusion Principle

Natural Fiber Composites With Flame Retardants In contrast to the components for the interior design of automobiles successfully realised so far, the requirements concerning flame resistance in other branches of traffic are considerably higher. Therefore, studies aiming at the modification of natural fiber composites with flame retardants were carried out, in order to meet the railway specifications. For the selection of flame retardants, it was difficult to keep the concept of natural fiber composites which demands an exclusive application of renewable resources or at least non-polluting materials. Consequently, flame retardants of mineral origin were applied, such as aluminium, magnesium hydroxide, and ammonium polyphosphate. It was pointed out that natural fiber composites modified in this way are well-suited to be applied for covering elements in the interior of railways [33].

Conclusion The use of natural fiber composites in a range of industrial applications has increased significantly over the last decade. The possibilities of utilising natural fiber composites are now 12

being realised and as a result there are now numerous examples where natural materials have found application in a number of diverse sectors from automotive and construction industries, to a critical industry such aerospace [30]. It seems clear that the application of natural fiber composites can do much to reduce the environmental burden of our materials usage by replacing fossil-based materials directly, by reducing the fuel consumption of vehicles incorporating these materials or by replacing materials with a higher environmental impact. Fibers such as flax and hemp grown for their technical properties are now finding use as composite reinforcement in automotive parts. The future for these materials looks promising, and, with advances in the materials science and technology of these materials, wide application in aerospace will undoubtedly be continued [12][19]. All these studies show the excellent capability of natural fiber composites to be processed to structural parts. The weight-related properties also allow to aim at applications which are today dominated by glass fiber reinforced plastics. Nevertheless, there a restrictions with respect to extreme environmental conditions. Although plant and animal based natural fibers were attracted much attention to the aerospace industries and undergone comprehensive researches in the past few years, many works such as poor wet ability, high moisture absorption and the preparation method in term of their interfacial bonding have not yet been solved to date. To wider the applications of these fibers in aerospace industry, more studies have to be continued in the future [36][37].

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