COMPOSITE MATERIALS BASED ON NATURAL FIBERS FOR ROAD TRANSPORT

Abstract

In connection with the hostilities in Ukraine, the supply of jute abroad is limited, so enterprises are trying to use local products, namely industrial hemp, which does not contain tetrahydrocannabinol. Henry Ford used hemp fibers in composite materials for the car body as early as 1941. He invested millions of dollars in the research and development of a plastic car and announced that he would "grow cars from the soil." Since 2009, Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University has been conducting studies of composite materials based on hemp fibers and the possibility of using them for road transport. The purpose of this work is to investigate the features of the production of composite materials based on industrial hemp and the development of methods for manufacturing a completely natural composite from industrial hemp. The paper considers two methods of manufacturing composite materials based on natural hemp fibers: with synthetic and natural matrices. The process of manufacturing composite materials with synthetic matrix, reinforced with hemp fibers, which are made using the process of forming sheets (SMC, sheet moulding compound), is analyzed. When creating natural matrix composite materials using bioplastics (PLA), the interfacial bond strength between hemp fibers and the PLA matrix will be weak, which is a disadvantage of natural fiber composites. In order to overcome this drawback, the method of punching material with needles was used. The production of composite material based on hemp at Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University is described. The composite material was made of nonwoven material based on hemp and natural PLA film, which was punched with needles for a better fit. The developed technique is as follows: 1) creating a web of hemp material and PLA; 2) compression of the web and punching with needles; 3) cutting hemp sticks into pieces measuring 20×175 mm; 4) forming and cutting PLA film into rectangles of 20×175 mm; 5) drying the material in the oven for 30 minutes at a temperature of 105°C; 6) the use of hot pressing.