Investigation of damping properties and low velocity impact response of flax fibre hybrid composites

The vibration damping behaviour and low velocity impact response of flax/carbon and flax/glass fibre reinforced epoxy hybrid composites were investigated in this study. To determine the damping loss factor, cantilever beam test specimens were subjected to a signal sweep over the first three resonance frequencies. An impact energy of 45 J was used to compare the impact response of the three different composites. Three-point bending tests were also performed using CFCFCFC and GFGFGFG composite layups, where C, G and F represent ±45 Carbon, glass and flax plies, respectively. Fully flax composite specimens were used as the reference material to investigate the effect of hybridisation. The results of this study suggest that hybrid composites are more suitable for applications requiring higher damping, impact resistance and bending strength compared to composites with single reinforcement material, without hybridisation.