Impact Resistance and Shore Hardness of Barkcloth Reinforced Epoxy Composites for Interior Automotive Panels

The global impact of the consequences of climate change due to an increase in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions are visible. With the implementation of EU directives on waste and end of life disposal strategies, there has been a surge of activity driven by the European automotive industry to introduce Natural Fiber Composites as a substitute to synthetic composites, where appropriate. This paper therefore reports the impact and shore hardness of composites reinforced with a naturally occurring non-woven fabric barkcloth. The composites were produced using a layering architecture; the impact properties show that samples with layering sequence I and IV had the best sequence for the impact properties. The shore hardness of the composites was 72 which is presentable. This further confirms the potential of barkcloth reinforced composites for interior automotive panels.