Design and fabrication of green biocomposites

Abstract

Many traditional materials that have been used in various engineering applications for long periods of time are being switched by new green materials to contribute meeting the demand of weight reduction, environmental issues as well as customer satisfaction attributes. Since natural fibers have many advantages, such as low cost, lightweight and environmentally friendly, researchers start put more effort in this area to utilize its benefits in producing bio-composite materials. However, design in green bio-composites has many challenges. One of the most important challenges is the limited availability of design data due to the large variety of fibers, matrices, and manufacturing processes. In consequence, several factors must be considered in the design process of green bio-composites, namely: processing consideration, selection of additives, selection of polymers, as well as good part design. Moreover, high coefficients of safety are still being used because of the difficulty to precisely model the material behavior, which in turn leads to oversize the structures. This is mainly due to the fact that the variation of material’s properties is not linear, however, it depends on how far the material is from failure. Therefore, proper testing, evaluation and manufacturing processes have to be considered by designers to be capable of producing functional produces regarding both macro and nano-scale bio-composite.