Effect of discontinuities in bamboo fibre reinforced epoxy composites

Abstract This paper performs a systematic study of the effect of various unidirectional fibre patterns, ranging from different overlapping lengths of adjacent fibre bundles to a complete randomization of the position of individual fibre ends. The study is benchmarked with the mechanical behaviour of a fully continuous unidirectional bamboo fibre-epoxy composite and will show the feasibility of using UD discontinuous technical bamboo fibres in continuous preforms for high-end composites applications. The study shows that the tensile stiffness is hardly influenced by the discontinuity patterns, while the introduction of randomized fibre end discontinuities (individual fibres with segment length 50 mm) leads to a preservation of 85% of the longitudinal tensile strength in comparison with a UD continuous bamboo fibre composite.