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The purpose of this paper is to present the review of natural fibre composites as well as a specific type of fibre, i.e., sugar palm fibre and its composites.

The approach of this review paper is to present previous work on natural fibres and their composites. Then a review of several important aspects such as history, origin, botanic description, distribution, application and characterisation of sugar palm tree, and its fibre is presented. Finally a review of properties and characterisation of sugar palm composites is presented.

Findings of this review include the potential application of natural fibres and their composites for engineering application, the use of sugar palm and its fibres, as well as the suitability of sugar palm composites in engineering application after conducting review of their performance and characterisation.

The value of this review is to highlight the potential of natural fibres, natural fibre composites, sugar palm, sugar palm fibres and sugar palm composites as materials for engineering applications.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Gourd fibres (GF) are a natural biodegradable fibre material with excellent mechanical properties and high tensile strength. The use of natural fibres in composite materials has gained popularity in recent years due to their various advantages, including renewability, low cost, low density and biodegradability. Gourd fibre is one such natural fibre that has been identified as a potential reinforcement material for composites. However, it has low surface energy and hydrophobic nature, which makes it difficult to bond with matrix materials such as polyester. To overcome this problem, chemically adapted gourd fibre has been proposed as a solution. Chemical treatment is one of the most widely used methods to improve the properties of natural fibres. This research evaluates the feasibility and effectiveness of incorporating chemically adapted gourd fibre into polyester composites for industrial fabrication. The purpose of this study is to examine the application of chemically modified GF in the production of polyester composite engineering materials.

This work aims to evaluate the effectiveness of chemically adapted gourd fibre in improving the adhesion of gourd fibre with polyester resin in composite fabrication by varying the GF from 5 to 20 wt.%. The study involves the preparation of chemically treated gourd fibre through surface modification using sodium hydroxide (NaOH), permanganate (KMnO₄) and acetic acid (CH₃COOH) coupling agents. The mechanical properties of the modified fibre and composites were investigated. It was then characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to determine the changes in surface morphology and functional groups.

FTIR characterization showed that NaOH treatment caused cellulose depolymerization and caused a significant increase in the hydroxyl and carboxyl groups, showing improved surface functional groups; KMnO₄ treatment oxidized the fibre surface and caused the formation of surface oxide groups; and acetic acid treatment induced changes that primarily affected the ester and hydroxyl groups. SEM study showed that NaOH treatment changed the surface morphology of the gourd fibre, introduced voids and reduced hydrophilic tendencies. The tensile strength of the modified gourd fibres increased progressively as the concentration of the modification chemicals increased compared to the untreated fibres.

This work presents the designed composite with density, mechanical properties and microstructure, showing remarkable improvements in the engineering properties. An 181.5% improvement in tensile strength and a 56.63% increase in flexural strength were got over that of the unreinforced polyester. The findings from this work will contribute to the understanding of the potential of chemically adapted gourd fibre as a reinforcement material for composites and provide insights into the development of sustainable composite materials.

The main idea is the comparison between composites including natural fibres (such as the linoleum fibres) and typical composites including carbon fibres or glass fibres. The comparison is proposed for different structures (plates, cylinders, cylindrical and spherical shells), lamination sequences (cross-ply laminates and sandwiches with composite skins) and thickness ratios. The purpose of this paper is to understand if linoleum fibres could be useful for some specific aerospace applications.

A general exact three-dimensional shell model is used for the static analysis of the proposed structures to obtain displacements and stresses through the thickness. The shell model is based on a layer-wise approach and the differential equations of equilibrium are solved by means of the exponential matrix method.

In qualitative terms, composites including linoleum fibres have a mechanical behaviour similar to composites including glass or carbon fibres. In terms of stress and displacement values, composites including linoleum fibres can be used in aerospace applications with limited loads. They are comparable with composites including glass fibres. In general, they are not competitive with respect to composites including carbon fibres. Such conclusions have been verified for different structure geometries, lamination sequences and thickness ratios.

The proposed general exact 3D shell model allows the analysis of different geometries (plates and shells), materials and laminations in a unified manner using the differential equilibrium equations written in general orthogonal curvilinear coordinates. These equations written for spherical shells degenerate in those for cylinders, cylindrical shell panels and plates by means of opportune considerations about the radii of curvature. The proposed shell model allows an exhaustive comparison between different laminated and sandwich composite structures considering the typical zigzag form of displacements and the correct imposition of compatibility conditions for displacements and equilibrium conditions for transverse stresses.

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the development of environment friendly, low cost natural fibre composites by robust engineering approach. More specifically, the prime objective of the study is to optimise the composition of natural fibre reinforced polymer nanocomposites using a robust statistical approach.

In this research, the material is prepared using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), Cantala fibres and Epoxy Resin in accordance with the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) standards. Further, the composition is prepared and optimised using the mixture-design approach for the flexural strength of the material.

The results of the study indicate that MWCNT plays a vital role in increasing the flexural strength of the composite. Moreover, it is observed that interactions between second order and third order parameters in the composition are statistically significant. This leads to proposing a special cubic model for the novel composite material with residual analysis. Moreover, the methodology assists in optimising the mixture component values to maximise the flexural strength of the novel composite material.

This article attempts to include both MWCNT and Cantala fibres to develop a novel composite material. In addition, it employs the mixture-design technique to optimise the composition and predict the model of the study in a step-by-step manner, which will act as a guideline for academicians and practitioners to optimise the material composition with specific reference to natural fibre reinforced nanocomposites.

Examines the fourteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Examines the fifteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Examines the thirteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

In the recent years, the industries show interest in natural and synthetic fibre-reinforced hybrid composites due to weight reduction and environmental reasons. The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate the properties of the hybrid composites fabricated by using carbon, untreated and alkaline-treated hemp fibres.

The composites were tested for strengths under tensile, flexural, impact and shear loadings, and the water absorption characteristics were also observed. The finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out to analyse the elastic behaviour of the composites and predict the strength by using ANSYS 15.0.

From the experimental results, it is observed that the hybrid composites can withstand the maximum tensile strength of 61.4 MPa, flexural strength of 122.4 MPa, impact strength of 4.2 J/mm² and shear strength of 25.5 MPa. From the FEA results, it is found that the maximum stress during tensile, flexural and impact loading is 47.5, 2.1 and 1.03 MPa, respectively.

The results of the untreated and alkaline-treated hemp-carbon fibre composites were compared and found that the alkaline-treated composites perform better in terms of mechanical properties. Then, the ANSYS-predicted values were compared with the experimental results, and it was found that there is a high correlation occurs between the untreated and alkali-treated hemp-carbon fibre composites. The internal structure of the broken surfaces of the composite samples was analysed using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis.

Examines the twelfth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.