JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #73 - June 2012 - 12

book launch

Flax & hemp fibres:
a natural solution for the composite industry

interview
Ignaas Verpoest professor, Metallurgy and MaterIals engIneerIng departMent, Ku leuVen presIdent, CelC european sCIentIfIC CoMMIttee

The industrial sectors that use non-renewable fibres have undertaken an eco-design initiative. Having the structure to meet this new industrial need, the CELC Technical Section collaborated with its European scientific committee CSE to produce the first scientific work on natural fibre composite solutions. The book is co-published with JEC Group.

JEC Composites Magazine: What motivated the compiling of this very practical book?

Ignaas Verpoest: Although natural biosourced fibres are raising more and more interest, the scientific literature on the subject is widely dispersed, and not exactly accessible to the composite industry. So there is a real need to bring all the information together and summarize it in a scientifically correct way that is also “comprehensible” to composite circles. In recent years, the CELC has also encouraged its members to create flax and hemp innovations directed towards composite applications, but these innovations are still not enough in the public eye. This work is a reference tool for using flax and hemp fibres in composite materials.
JCM: The book is the result of a collective effort. Does that mean that a real work network is emerging?

I. V. : For the past three years, the CELC Technical Section’s European Scientific Committee (CSE) has been coordinating and encouraging scientific and technical development on flax and hemp fibres. The CSE is fully a part of an open innovation initiative for the benefit of the players in the whole industry, upstream and down,

from fibre preparation to users. The CELC’s CSE is made up of ten scientists from five European countries, all ten specialized in the different areas that matter for composite applications for flax and hemp, e.g. knowledge of the fibres themselves, fibre treatment/extraction, micro- and mesomechanical behaviour of composites, fibre-matrix adhesion, and composite processing. The book, a CELC-JEC Group copublication, is one of the CSE’s first works in partnership with a benchmark platform. Other achievements are a database that is already posted on the web (http://www.mastersoflinen. com/technicaldatabase) on all the different technical data on flax and hemp, and the collective research projects that we are currently preparing in the form of standardized technical data sheets on the different flax and hemp preforms (fabrics, multiaxials, UDs, etc.). We are also developing a method to characterize flax and hemp fibre properties to match the methods used for carbon and glass fibres (impregnated fibre bundle test).
JCM: In general, what are the main obstacles today to developing natural fibres for use with composites?

of flax and hemp fibres, their excellent stiffness (similar to that of glass fibre) for one-half as much density, are not systematically known in the world of composites. These technical advantages are not recognized because the composite industry has been more specifically interested in the environment-friendly aspects of these natural fibres. Second, the absence of optimized

I. V. : First, the technical advantages

Flax and Hemp fibres: a natural solution for the composite indsutry, 2012, ISBN: 978-2-95262761-0, €80,57

12 jec composites magazine / No73 June 2012

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JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #73 - June 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #73 - June 2012