In the current decade, a number of industries have moved their attention towards emerging sustainable technologies in order to better support socio-economic and environmental considerations. The present research investigates a unique hybrid composite developed by the amalgamation of natural kenaf-coir fibers, with resin of epoxy, incorporated with titanium carbide (TiC) nanoparticles. This study also presents the development process involved in manufacturing the composites, along with mechanical testing and optimization of these composite samples. The nanofillers of TiC are utilized in wt. percentages of 0%, 3%, 4%, and 5%, while coir and kenaf fibers are incorporated at 0%, 3%, 4%, and 5% by weight, and the thickness of the samples is varied at 2, 3, 4, and 5mm. The mechanical attributes of composites are evaluated using a vacuum bag molding process, with subsequent testing and optimization performed through Taguchi and ANOVA analysis to discover the optimal sample combination. The findings indicate that the most effective composite formulation includes 4% TiC, 5% kenaf, 5% coir, and a thickness of 3 mm, which provides the highest tensile modulus and strength among all tested samples. The integration of kenaf fibers with coir fibers and TiCs as fillers significantly improves the tensile and flexural attributes of the hybrid composite in contrast to composites made with coir or kenaf fibers alone.

This paper presents a novel composite material produced by a natural reinforcement subjected to tensile test. The used reinforcement is made of Diss fibers. The Diss (Ampelodesma mauritanica) is a Mediterranean wild plant. This fiber is characterized in tensile according to ASTM standard. The results obtained show that the fiber Young’s modulus and the stress at break were very interesting and were similar to those obtained for some natural fibers such as sisal fiber. The composite was developed to study by three differing volume fractions of 20%, 30 % and 40 %.

This research gives an overview of an investigation into existing non-destructive testing (NDT) methods used to analyse composite materials. From the investigation and subsequent experimentation a new technique of failure identification in composite materials was developed. The new technique is a form of thermography whereby a temperature rise in a composite material during failure is detected via a thermal camera and a thermal image captured. By observing the thermal images captured of the event the location and the severity of the failure could be gained by only using the thermal images combined with a visual inspection to validate the results. By taking a thermal image and analysing the constituent red, green and blue colours that make up the image, the location of the defect could be pinpointed. This analysis method was developed using MATLAB® in order for the location of a defect to be found using only a thermal image of the composite during failure. The analysis showed that the information that yields the most accurate location of failure was the red part of the images.

Collide of two objects or impact, is one of the main damage initiation reasons. In this paper, impact and damage behavior of elastic and visco-elastic bodies are investigated numerically using the finite element analyses. The results showed that visco-elastic materials, distribute stresses to the edge of model after the impact with a solid body. Furthermore, the impact of elastic and visco-elastic composite materials are analyzed and the variations of stress, displacement, damage energy and the damage patterns during a time period are compared for the two material models. The reduction in the values of stress, displacement and damage energy of visco-elastic material is also determined relative to the elastic composite material.