Characterization of Tensile Properties of Cola lepidota Fibers

Abstract

Plant fibers are being increasingly explored for their use in engineering polymers and composites, and many works have described their properties, especially for flax and hemp fibers. Nevertheless, the availability of plant fibers varies according to the geographical location on the planet. This study presents the first work on the mechanical properties of a tropical fiber extracted from the bast of Cola lepidota (CL) plant. After a debarking step, CL fibers were extracted manually by wet-retting. The tensile properties are first identified experimentally at the fibers scale, and the analysis of the results shows the great influence of the cross-section parameters (diameter, intrinsic porosities) on these properties. Tensile properties of CL fibers are also predicted by the impregnated fiber bundle test (IFBT). At this scale of bundles, a hackling step, which reduces shives and contributes to the parallelization of the fibers within bundles, improves tensile properties predicted by IFBT. The comparison with the properties of plant fibers given in the literature shows that CL fibers have tensile properties in the same range as kenaf, flax or hemp fibers.