Improving the impact performance of natural fiber reinforced laminate through hybridization and layup design

There is growing interest in Natural Fiber Reinforced Polymer (NFRP) composites for structural components despite their lower mechanical performance than synthetic composites such as Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) composite. This study demonstrates significant improvement in impact resistance of NFRP-GFRP hybrid laminates can be achieved through the integration of laminate layup design with interlaminar hybridization. By placing more GFRP plies near the top and bottom of the hybrid laminate while reducing the occurrence of neighbouring GFRP-GFRP plies and neighbouring NFRP-NFRP plies around the centre of the laminate, the impact resistance of the hybrid laminate can be significantly improved and even surpass GFRP laminates. On top of stacking sequence of plies, the impact resistance of the hybrid laminates can be further improved by introducing a bio-inspired helicoidal layup. The result shows that with 30 wt% GFRP plies and 70 wt% NFRP plies, the perforation energy of NFRP-GFRP hybrid helicoidal laminate outperforms both the plain GFRP and plain NFRP laminates by 11.7% and 143.8%, respectively, whereas the peak load of the hybrid helicoidal laminate subjected to impact is also comparable to the plain GFRP laminate. [Display omitted]