Investigations of flexural and impact properties of bio-epoxy-based composites for bone plate application

Bone plates are necessary for bone fracture healing since they adapt the bio-mechanical micro-environment at the fracture location to provide the essential mechanical fixation for the fracture fragments. This research concentrates on decreasing the influence of stress shielding that takes place owing to an incompatibility between the metallic plate and the cortical bone by using a composite material based on biopolymer bio-epoxy thermosetting material reinforced by natural pumpkin powder at a fixed weight fraction (2 wt.%) for all lamination sample in addition to fiber reinforcement which involves different layers of flax woven fabrics mainly in addition to woven Carbon fibers, woven Glass fibers, as laminates which prepared by hand layup technique. Thus, the prepared specimens were exposed to the flexural max shear stress, impact, and surface roughness tests. The results manifested an improvement in composite properties (the flexural strength, flexural modulus, impact strength, fracture toughness, max: shear stress, and surface roughness) by the addition of flax fibers. Also, hybrid laminate bio-composites with natural and synthetic reinforcement recorded the best results among other composites. Also, the (2% pumpkin powder + 4-layer flax/2 layers Carbon fiber) biocomposites have the best result in terms of flexural strength, flexural modulus, and maximum. Shear stress and impact strength values rise from (62.5 MPa), (2.1 GPa), (4.37 MPa), and (5.6 KJ/m2) to reach (210 MPa), (5.27 GPa), (12.18 MPa), and (94.37 KJ/m2), respectively. The SPSS program was also used to analyze the results of this study statistically. According to the current study, Laminate fiber-reinforced composites are the materials most recently probed as possible candidates for internal fracture fixation implants by placing different woven fabric reinforcements.