Manteghi 2017
Manteghi 2017
Manteghi 2017
PII: S1751-6161(16)30304-6
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmbbm.2016.08.035
Reference: JMBBM2054
To appear in: Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials
Received date: 13 May 2016
Revised date: 24 August 2016
Accepted date: 26 August 2016
Cite this article as: Saeed Manteghi, Zia Mahboob, Zouheir Fawaz and Habiba.
Bougherara, Investigation of the mechanical properties and failure modes of
hybrid natural fibre composites for potential bone fracture fixation plates, Journal
of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmbbm.2016.08.035
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Investigation of the mechanical properties and failure modes of
hybrid natural fibre composites for potential bone fracture
fixation plates
Saeed Manteghia, Zia Mahbooba, Zouheir Fawazb, Habiba Bougherara a,*
a
Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON., M5B 2K3,
Canada
b
Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON., M5B 2K3, Canada
*Corresponding Author. Email: Habiba.bougherara@ryerson.ca Tel. +1(416)979-5000, ext.
7092
Keywords: Hybrid natural fibre composites. Mechanical characterization, water absorption,
Glass/flax/epoxy composites
Abstract
1
1 Introduction
The term ‘‘advanced engineering composite material’’ refers to the combination of a soft
(matrix) and a strong (reinforcement) constituent that are combined together in order to facilitate
the production process, enhance the properties of the matrix and assist in transferring load
between the stiff and strong reinforcements. Composite materials due to their significant
physical, mechanical and thermal, corrosion resistance and dimensional stability are being
extensively used in our day to day life as an important category of material properties for
designing structural components in engineering applications such as aerospace, automotive and
biomechanical application. These outstanding mechanical properties depending on the end use of
the composite and can be tailored by altering the type of the fibrous reinforcements and their
placement orientation in the composite structure.
Despite the high performance of synthetic fibers such as glass and carbon, drawbacks including
non-renewability, non-recyclability, and high-energy consumption requirements to manufacture,
have shifted interests towards natural fibers in recent years. When compared to synthetic fibres,
natural fibres offer many advantages including good specific mechanical properties , easy to
recycle , and require less energy to process . In addition, they are sustainable , cheaper and
lighter in weight and less toxic to human .
In recent years, composite materials have been considered for biomedical applications (i.e.
fracture fixation mechanism such as plates and IM nails) since they have mechanical and
biological similarities to the human tissue . Although composites have some advantages, such as
being radiolucent in X-ray radiography and compatibility with modern medical imaging like
MRI and CT scans , there are still facing some complications. This includes degradation of the
properties over time even under low amplitude cyclic loading, decrease of the properties in
bodily humified atmosphere, risk of implant breakage , and overall bio-incompatibility of the
composite material which may lead to implant loosening and/or failure .
A diaphysis fracture of a long bone in a patient with a total hip implant is mainly treated by a
bone plate, as nailing becomes physically impossible . An efficient fixation device must have
mechanical properties close to the bone plate in order to allow some levels of axial movements
between fracture ends while stabilizing the fracture site by minimizing the unfavourable
2
fragments' motions . Therefore, the fixation mechanism must fully tolerate the torsional and
bending loads (high bending and torsional stiffness) while being axially flexible .
The focus of the present study is to investigate the possibility of using a new composite material
in designing fracture plates commonly used in long bone fractures such as femoral shaft
fractures. Although, the conventional metallic plates made of titanium (Ti)-alloys or stainless
steel can provide appropriate stability at the fracture site because of their high bending and
torsional stiffnesses . Nonetheless, their axial stiffness are much higher compared to human
cortical bone and they can result in reducing normal stress from the bone, known as “stress
shielding” effect . This stress shielding can cause the bone to adapt by reducing its density,
which can slow the healing process or lead to re-fracture . Therefore, to address these drawbacks,
any material that could promote selective stress shielding (i.e. composite material) would be
favorable in order to reduce the axial stiffness while maintaining the adequate bending and
torsional stiffnesses . Composite materials similar to natural bones were introduced in 1980. The
composite fixation mechanism significantly increase the load levels on the surrounding bone
while remaining stiff and strong enough to stabilise the fracture site and withstand physiologic
loading . In addition, due to customizability of the composite material, a composite plate with
similar geometry to conventional plates can be optimized by manipulating the fibers’ orientation
or the stacking sequence of the plies to yield desired stiffness and strength in different directions
.
A significant amount of research has been conducted to develop polymer-based fibre reinforced
composite materials for bone fracture applications . Among them, those using natural fibers such
as Roselle, banana, and sisal , or synthetic fibers with unidirectional lamina , discontinuous short
fiber , glass fiber reinforce composite implants , bio active glass composite , Coir/ biopolymers
and Coir/Bioepoxy green natural fiber composites , fiber reinforced PEEK and braided fiber as
reinforcement . In addition, many studies have investigated hybrid composites made from
artificial fibres, natural fibres and with a combination of both artificial and natural fibres .
However, despite all well-known advantages of natural fibre-based composites, there are still
some limitations, which will require further improvement such as moisture absorption due to
hydrophobicity, dimensional stability, poor wettability, low thermal stability during processing
and poor adhesion with synthetic fibres. Therefore, to overcome these limitations, the
3
combination of two or more natural and synthetic fibres into a single matrix has led to the
development of hybrid composites which can provide a combination of properties with
acceptable performance in different directions that may not be achieved by one type of fiber .
Since, only a limited number of studies have considered hybrid composites for bone fracture
plate applications , a new and unique hybrid Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite plate with sandwich
structure with potential for long bone fracture plate application has been developed. The main
purpose of this study is to determine the mechanical properties of this new Glass/Flax/Epoxy
plate and evaluate its potential for orthopedic long bone fracture fixation. In order to evaluate the
mechanical properties of this hybrid composite material under the main loads experienced by
orthopedic femur fracture plates, uniaxial tension, uniaxial compression and three-point bending
were conducted. Furthermore, water absorption tests were performed to investigate the
possibility of using such material when it is subjected to moisture at the fracture site. Moreover,
Rockwell hardness tests were conducted in order to compare the surface hardness of this material
with medical grade conventional metals used for the same application.
4
A compression-molding machine (Carver Press, Wabash, IN, USA) was used to cure the
sandwich composite plates in a three-stage curing cycle. Initially, the plates were heated up from
room temperature to 1 ˚C at half load pressure of . bar (heating stage). Then at this temperature (1
˚C), the pressure was increased to bars and the plates were kept in this condition for 2.5 hours to cure
fully (curing stage). inally, the plates were cooled down from 1 ˚C to room temperature at bars
(cooling stage). The dimensions of the manufactured composite plates were 300*300 mm, with an
average thickness of 4 mm. These composite plates were then cut using a table saw to generate
specimens with 250 mm length and of 25 mm width.
Mechanical testing, include tension, compression, three-point bending, and Rockwell hardness
tests, were performed on Glass/Flax/ Epoxy composite specimens to determine its mechanical
properties, such as the longitudinal strength, Young's modulus, flexural strength, flexural
modulus, and the hardness. The aim was to determine the mechanical properties of the composite
plate and the strength of bonding at the interface of Glass/Epoxy and Flax/Epoxy laminae under
clinical-type axial and bending loading conditions. Owing to their high performance, composite
materials have gained wide use in commercial, military, aerospace and biomedical applications.
There is one major concern, however, is that the mechanical properties of such materials may
degrade when exposed to moisture for long periods of time. Therefore, in order to utilize
composite materials at their full potential, their response to moisture must be known. In this
research paper, the moisture absorption rate as a function of time when the material is fully
submerged in water (i.e. implant inside the body is in contact with bodily liquid constantly for
relatively long time) is investigated.
Standard saturated moisture absorption tests were conducted in accordance with ASTM standard
(ASTM D570-98). Five specimens from each stacking sequence (i.e., unidirectional and angle
ply) were cut and then dried in an oven for 1 hour at 110 C. The specimens were immediately
weighed to the nearest 0.001gr using a precision balance (Sartorius M-prove series, Sartorius
Inc., NY, USA). After that, they were entirely immersed in distilled water and maintained at
room temperature. At the end of every 24 hours’ period, the specimens were removed from the
5
water and wiped off one at a time with a low lint cloth. Then weighed again immediately to the
nearest 0.001gr and then placed one more time in the water. The percentage of the weight
increase during immersion was calculated to the nearest 0.01% as follows :
Tensile test experiments were conducted based on ASTM standards (ASTM D3039/D3039M-14,
2008b) on five specimens from each stacking sequence (SP01 to SP05). A tensile test machine
(STM series, United Calibration Corp., Huntington Beach, CA), with a testing speed of 2
mm/min and a 50 kN load cell was used to perform these tests. An extensometer (United
Calibration Corp., Huntington Beach, CA, USA) placed at the center of the specimens was used
to measure elongation. The composite specimens were positioned in the grips with the long axis
in-line with the force direction (Deluxe-Action Wedge Grips, United Calibration Corp.,
Huntington Beach, CA, USA) so that 60 mm of the samples at each end was gripped. The test
specimens were loaded to failure under quasi-static tensile loading conditions. The ultimate
strength and ultimate strain were measured just before the failure. The modulus of elasticity was
determined by applying linear regression to the linear domain of the experimental stress-vs-strain
curve. Mean value and standard deviation of the obtained were then calculated.
Compression tests were performed on five specimens from each stacking sequence in accordance
with ASTM standard (ASTM D695-10, 2010a) for compressive properties of rigid plastics . The
experiments were conducted on a compression machine (MTS 322 Test Frame, MTS Systems
Corporation, Eden Prairie, MN, USA), with a testing speed of 2 mm/min and a 100 kN load cell.
The five specimens from each stacking sequence were cut in 100 mm long and 25 mm wide and
were positioned in the hydraulic grips with the long axis in-line with the force direction so that
40 mm of the samples at each end was gripped with 5kN gripping load. The ultimate strength
and ultimate strain were measured just before the failure (i.e. occurrence of the buckling). The
modulus of elasticity was obtained by applying linear regression to the linear domain of the
experimental stress-strain curve.
6
2.6 Bending Tests
Three-point bending tests were performed on 5 specimens from each stacking sequence with a
length of 250 mm and a width of 25 mm based on the recommended dimensions from the ASTM
standard (ASTM D7264/D7264M—07, 2015) for bending properties of polymer matrix
composite materials. All specimens were loaded to failure under quasi-static loading conditions.
The experiments were conducted on the same testing machine used for tension tests, in which a
fixture having 200 mm span length was used to support each specimen. A large span-to-
thickness ratio was chosen in order to minimize the effect of out-of-plane shear in calculation of
bending properties. Both loading nose and supports had circular contact surfaces of 3 mm radius.
The testing speed was 10 mm/min, and a 50 KN load cell was used in all tests. Using the beam
theory, the ultimate strength and ultimate strain were measured just before failure. In addition,
the flexural modulus of elasticity, which is the ratio of stress to strain at any point on the stress-
vs-strain curve, was calculated using equation 2 and 3 ,
(Eq.2)
(Eq.3)
Where f is the flexural modulus of elasticity (MPa), f is the ultimate flexural stress (MPa),
is the maximum load (N), L is the support span (mm), b is the width of the beam (mm), h is the
thickness of beam (mm), M is the slope of the force-vs-deflection curve (N/mm).
Rockwell E hardness tests were performed on 5 square-shaped specimens from each stacking
sequence based on ASTM standard (ASTM D785-08, 2008b) for Rockwell hardness test of
plastics and electrical insulating materials as there is no ASTM standard specifically for testing
the hardness of polymer-matrix composite materials.
All test specimens were visually examined for parallel flat surfaces to eliminate deflection
caused by poor contact between samples and the anvil of the hardness tester machine. A large
steel ball (rather than a cone-shaped indenter) was chosen in order to distribute the load more
evenly, since fibers may influence the penetration of the indenter and could result in variations in
7
data . Tests were done at ambient temperature using a Rockwell hardness tester (LR300TD,
LECO Corporation, St. Joseph, MI, USA), which forced a steel sphere with a 1/16-inch diameter
at a load of 100 kg (HRE). The total time taken from the initial indentation, to load dwell time,
and finally to the recording of the measurement was 10 seconds, which was controlled entirely
by the hardness tester. For each sample, 3 readings were made directly from the testing device,
and the mean value of these readings was reported as the hardness of this material.
The results of the moisture absorption tests for unidirectional and angle ply
plates were shown in Figure 2. The measured weight gain of the composite plates
reached a steady state after about 40 days and was found to be 6.03± 0.174 % for
specimens and 4.61± 0.217 % for unidirectional specimens. For comparison purposes,
the results from this study are tabulated along with those from previous studies (Table 1). It can
be seen from these results that the addition of two external layers of glass fiber significantly
improved (by more than 180%) the water absorption of the pure flax/epoxy composite. Also,
changing the orientation of the flax fibers from ˚ to ˚ considerably increase the rate of water
absorption by more than 30%.
The tensile behavior of the five tested specimens for each configuration used in this study are
shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4. All specimens experienced brittle fracture with linear behavior
up until failure. From analysing the data recorded during the test, the mean values with standard
deviations (± SD) for Young’s modulus and the ultimate strength were 31.97 ± 2.97 GPa and
408.25 ± 51.36 MPa for specimens and 16.51± 0.68 GPa and 301.87 ± 62.77 MPa for
specimens, respectively (Table 3 and Table 4).
Catastrophic failure accompanied by an abrupt decrease in the load after reaching a peak value
occurred in all specimens. All specimens showed edge delimitation or long splitting in their glass
layer in both sides of the specimen (Figure 5). The inner bundle of the flax fiber laminate stayed
intact up until final failure. It has been observed that most flax fibers exhibited smooth tensile
8
failure surfaces caused by the propagation of the crack in the matrix accompanied by fiber
breakage. In addition, premature failures have occurred due to early initiation of cracks in matrix
or fiber tearing in few specimens, which affected the ultimate strength drastically. Specimens
without presence of premature failure have shown higher ultimate strength or strain at primary
failure.
The behavior of the specimens under compression is shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7. The
Young’s modulus and the ultimate strength were 18.26 ± 1.02 GPa and 261.21 ± 21.93 MPa for
unidirectional samples and 10.52 ± 0.37 GPa and 233.25 ±7.89 MPa for
samples, respectively (Table 3 and Table 4). As it can be seen it Figure 6 and Figure 7
catastrophic failure accompanied by an abrupt decrease in load after reaching a peak value
occurred in all samples. All tested specimens experienced a brittle failure in compression mainly
due to local compressive barreling of the outermost glass plies. All specimens showed
delimitation in the adjacent surface of the glass and flax plies (Figure 8). The inner flax bundle
showed minor delamination but buckled drastically under compressive load.
The behavior of the specimens in bending is shown in Figure 9 and Figure 10. All specimens
showed linear behavior in the force-vs-displacement curve up until failure occurrence. The
average for flexural modulus and ultimate flexural strength were 39.84 ± 1.08 GPa and 591.25 ±
23.9 MPa for samples and 30.03 ± 0.33 GPa and 499.98 ± 18.59 MPa for
samples, respectively (Table 3 and Table 4). A typical failed specimen in three-
point bending is illustrated in Figure 11. In all specimens, failure occurred at the inner surfaces
due to matrix cracking and fiber breakage along the compressed surfaces (primary failure)
followed by progressive delamination of the glass plies and buckling of flax plies (secondary
failure).
9
3.5 Rockwell Hardness Test
The overall average for Rockwell hardness of the Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite was 82.17 ± 1.18
HRE for unidirectional samples and 85.09 ± 1.07 HRE for samples. All
specimens showed circular-shaped indentations at their tested surfaces (molded surfaces),
perpendicular to the testing direction (parallel to the molding pressure). A comparison of some
materials used in biomedical applications particularly those used for femoral bone fracture
fixation is shown in Table 2.
There are scattered results in the literature on the mechanical properties of composite reinforced
by natural fibers, glass fibers, and carbon fibers. The results of some prior studies on glass fiber
composites, flax fiber composites, and hybrid composites reinforced by natural fibers and carbon
fiber are summarized in (Table 3 and Table 4). The results of the current study are within the
range reported in the literature; however, they do not correlate perfectly due to different
orientation of the fibers used, dissimilar fiber or matrix volume fraction, and various
manufacturing methods. Our results compare favorably with those reported by Moritz et al.
using glass fiber composite with respect to flexural strength. However, the flexural modulus is 2
times higher in the current study. When compared to human cortical bone, the current hybrid
composite material matches the elastic modulus of the cortical bone, yet 2 to 3 times stronger.
Compared to pure Flax/Epoxy, the present hybrid composite is much stronger and stiffer. This
confirms that the addition of layers of glass fibers in the outer surface will enhance the
mechanical properties of the flexible Flax/epoxy core, which was one of the main objectives of
this study. Moreover, the proposed Glass/Flax/Epoxy is less stiff but comparably strong when
compared to Carbon/Flax/Epoxy composites (Bagheri et al., 2013) . This quality makes this
material a more attractive candidate for an optimized structure for bone fracture fixation systems.
The current study is the first to investigate the mechanical properties of Glass/Flax/Epoxy hybrid
composites for orthopedic applications such as bone plating for femoral fracture fixation. A
perfect bonding has been observed at the interface of Glass/Epoxy and Flax/Epoxy adjacent
10
layers, as no de-bonding or delamination has occurred between these adjacent layers prior to
failure. As shown in the static tests, the majority of the tested specimens have exhibited primary
failure due to matrix crack propagation followed by delamination in the glass/epoxy and
flax/epoxy adjacent interfaces. The initiation of glass fiber tearing was followed by a secondary
failure due to completion of the glass fibers breakage and flax fiber bundle tearing/buckling. In
the case of tension, the flax bundle has shown sudden rupture at the very end of the experiment,
and for compression, the inner flax fiber bundles have shown interface delamination and
buckling as secondary failure.
As indicated before, metallic implants promote negative “stress shielding” and reduce fracture
healing due to high axial stiffness of the metallic materials used . Therefore, an improved
fracture healing can be obtained by designing a fracture fixation mechanism with lower axial
stiffness to allow the underlying bone to carry a considerable amount of applied load, while
having sufficient bending stiffness to prevent gross motion at the fracture site. As shown in
Table 3 and Table 4, the developed Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite with tailorable tensile modulus
ranging from 16.5 to 31.97 GPa and axial compressive modulus ranging from 10.52 GPa to
18.26 GPa, give the hope of achieving an optimal design with mechanical properties much closer
to that of cortical bone (7-25 GPa) . This composite material will minimize stress shielding by
allowing more load sharing as compared to conventional Titanium (E = 110 GPa) and stainless-
steel (E = 220 GPa) . In addition, ultimate strength in tension (ranging from 301.87 MPa and
408.25 MPa), compression (varying from 233.25 MPa and 261.21 MPa), and flexion (more than
500 MPa) offered by the current hybrid composite specimens are high enough to avoid poor
stability on fracture site, immobilize adjacent bone fragments and carry clinical-type loads .
Theoretically, if the effects of geometry were fully accounted for using the current ASTM
standards, it is expected that the material used in this study should have yielded same values for
flexural and tensile properties, however, these value are not the same in this study. It is known
that flexural properties of composite materials depend on the stacking-sequences of each lamina
and overall symmetry of the structure, while the tensile properties are more instinct of the
material and independent of stacking-sequence . Thus, superior flexural properties compared to
tensile and compressive properties of the current Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite were caused by
the “sandwich structure effect”, where the flexible core material of lax poxy embedded
11
between two stronger and stiffer Glass/Epoxy layers on each side of the structure. These outer
layers mainly experienced tension and compression during bending tests, whereas the entire
composite structure (inner and outer layers) uniformly experienced almost the same stress load
during uniaxial tension/compression tests. Therefore, it can be concluded that a hybrid composite
sandwich structure containing stronger and stiffer fiber in outer layers and more flexible fiber in
the inner layers can result in an optimal stiffness and strength (axial, shear and bending). Such
sandwich structure is ideal candidate for designing long bone fracture fixation mechanisms such
as plates, as they can provide selective stress shielding and demonstrate lower axial stiffness and
adequate shear and bending stiffnesses concurrently.
It is worth noting, that all tests were conducted under quasi-static loading conditions to
determine the mechanical properties of the new composite material. Thus, it is recommended for
a future investigation to conduct compression-compression and bending fatigue tests based on
ASTM standard. Furthermore, investigating the performance of this composite material under
impact, tension-tension fatigue and tension-compression fatigue loading conditions can further
expand the body of knowledge of this material, and also will help other industries to adopt it for
structural applications confidently.
Another limitation of this work is the curvature of the plate which plays an important role in the
stabilization of the bone fragments at the fracture site . All specimens used in the current study
were straight rather than curved which may affect the overall stiffness and the ultimate strength
of the composite plates. For example, the compressive load-to-failure can be reduced due to
curvature since the curved specimen will more prone to buckling. Therefore, further mechanical
testing is required on curved composite specimens to consider the overall lateral effect of
curvature on the mechanical performance.
Finally, one important aspect to be considered in future work is biocompatibility. Bagheri et al.,
conducted a comparative biocompatibility study including cytotoxicity and osteogenesis tests on
a very similar sandwich structure consisting same flax fiber and epoxy hybrid with a layer of
carbon fiber ply on each side. The CF/Flax/epoxy specimens showed comparable cell viability
with no cytotoxicity at all incubation times to that of medical grade stainless steel. In addition,
osteogenesis test results showed that bone formation genes’ expression levels induced by
CF/Flax/Epoxy were significantly higher than those induced by the control. This shows the
12
potential of the hybrid structure to promote bone growth. Also, Ballo et al. investigated the bone
tissue response to glass fiber reinforced composite implants to evaluate in vivo bone-to-implant
contact and the osteoconductive capacity of bioactive fiber-reinforced composite implant (FRC).
The results suggested that the FRC implant is biocompatible with bone. The biological behavior
of FRC was comparable to that of Ti after 4 and 12 weeks of implantation. Furthermore, the
addition of bioactive glass to the FRC implant increased peri-implant osteogenesis and bone
maturation . Since, this research paper targets bone plate fixation for orthopedic trauma
applications, chemical bonding is not required for the normal performance of the proposed
hybrid fixation device. In fact, such bonding can reduce the relative movements of fracture
fragments, which in turn can be detrimental to secondary fracture healing.
4 Conclusions
This study confirms that the developed composite shows enhanced mechanical properties
compared to the previously studied Flax/Epoxy composites, which means improvement of the
structure by adding the layers of the Glass fiber was successful. This material is significantly
more flexible axially compared to conventional metallic implants and considerably has high
ultimate strength needed to carry clinical-type forces experiences during daily normal activities.
In addition, the concept of stress shielding phenomenon is not necessarily disadvantageous and
can be beneficial in fracture healing. If the designed implant adequately counters bending,
torsional, and shear stresses while only fractionally resisting compressive stresses, it can thereby
stimulate remodelling of the callus at the fracture site . The hybrid composite sandwich structure
containing stronger and stiffer fibers in outer layers and more flexible in inner layers can result in
a higher stiffness and strength in bending compared to tension and compression. Such hybrid
sandwich configuration represents an ideal candidate for designing optimized structures for long
bone fracture fixation mechanisms as they can promote “selective stress shielding”. Since the
bone-plate system is subjected to cyclic loading, future studies to evaluate the fatigue behavior of
the developed Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite under compression-compression cyclic loads will be
conducted. Further tests including biocompatibity of the current composite material will be
conducted in future work.
13
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20
List of Figures
Figure 3: Tension test results for the five test specimens (SP01-SP05) for laminate
Figure 4: Tension test results for the five test specimens (SP01-SP05) for laminate
Figure 5: Catastrophic failure of the specimens in tension test; (a) laminate, (b)
laminate
Figure 6: Compression test results for the five test specimens (SP01-SP05) for
laminate
Figure 7: Compression test results for the five test specimens (SP01-SP05) for
laminate
Figure 11: A typical failed specimen from bending test; A side view (left) shows the failure on
the compression surface of the sample. Matrix cracking, fiber breakage and pull out on the failed
surface (right)
21
22
23
24
25
Table 1: Water absorption results of wetibility test on various composite material
26
Current 82.17 ± 1.18 HRE -
CF/Flax/ Epoxy 72.43 ± 3.87 HRE
27
Table 3: The elastic modulus of the current Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite along with some
previously studied material, ElT is tensile Young’s modulus, ElC is compressive Young’s
modulus and Ef is flexural modulus
Table 4: The Ultimate strength of the current Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite along with some
previously studied material, lT U is ultimate tensile strength, lC U is ultimate compressive
strength and F U is ultimate flexural strength
1T 1C F
Material u(MPa) (MPa)
u u(MPa) Reference
Current 408.25 ± 51.36 261.21 ± 21.93 591.25 ± 23.9 -
Current 301.87 ± 62.77 233.25 ± 7.89 499.98 ± 18.59 -
Flax/Epoxy 200 - -
Flax/Epoxy 148.1 - -
Carbon/Flax/Epoxy 399.8 ± 8.2 - 510.6 ± 66.3
Human Cortical Bone 50-150 - -
CF/Flax/Epoxy 172.4-288.3 - 85-160.42
Sisal/CF/polyester 84.44-107.51 - 140.89-169.14
Glass/BisGMA/TEGDMA
- - 802.0±112.7
Resin (UF-BG)
Glass/BisGMA/TEGDMA
- - 602.0±81.6
Resin (UFS-BG)
List of Tables:
28
Table 1: Water absorption results of wetibility test on various composite material
Table 2: Comparison of the surface hardness for some material
Table 3: The elastic modulus of the current Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite along with some
previously studied material, ElT is tensile Young’s modulus, lC is compressive Young’s
modulus and Ef is flexural modulus
Table 4: The Ultimate strength of the current Glass/Flax/Epoxy composite along with some
previously studied material, lT U is ultimate tensile strength, lC U is ultimate compressive
strength and F U is ultimate flexural strength
29