A study on the integration of natural fiber in high-performance sustainable composites

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in environmentally friendly innovations due to the urgent need to address global warming and build a sustainable future. Natural fiber (NF) research is one area of interest that has gained significant attention in the composites industry, mainly due to its low carbon footprint compared to its synthetic counterpart. However, raw NFs currently do not have the same structural properties as their synthetic counterparts, such as carbon fiber (CF) and glass fiber (GF) composites. As a result, high-performance industries have been reluctant to adopt them due to their reduced stiffness in response to mechanical loading, which often limits their use in certain applications. To overcome this obstacle, innovative methods are being developed to improve the performance of these composites while maintaining a lower carbon footprint. This work falls into this category by creating a hybrid composite replacing conventional flow accelerators with NFs, taking advantage of their high permeability. Different natural fiber architectures are being tested for permeability, absorption, structure and infusion simulation. The generated data will be stored as a material library serving as a digital model for future applications. This work aims to combine NFs and CFs to achieve a sustainable design by balancing mechanical properties, manufacturing costs, and environmental footprint, resulting in a multi-objective problem that ultimately advances the general understanding of NFs and their potential in high-performance composites.