The influence of structural and chemical parameters on mechanical properties of natural fibers: a statistical exploratory analysis

Abstract

Due to environmental challenges, the demand for natural fibers (NFs) in biocomposites is expanding. Therefore, the study of the mechanical behavior of these natural fibers is increasingly requested. There is more than two thousands species of plant fibers that have been investigated. In this work, a statistical study involving, namely chemical content, mechanical and physical properties is conducted on a set of natural fibers. The relationship between these factors is studied. The Pearson correlation method is applied to investigate the sensitivity between these parameters. For this aim, a selected data set, collected from the literature, has been used. Results show that Young's modulus exhibits greater correlation with physical and chemical parameters compared to the other mechanical properties. Additionally, the crystallinity index (CI) is a reliable parameter on predicting the mechanical behavior of natural fibers. Moreover, although the MFA° and diameter are important parameters for NFs modeling purpose, the experimental measurement of these two quantities is a source of unbiased interpretation that partially explains the large variation of the mechanical properties, reported in the literature.