Co-cured in-line joints for natural fibre composites

Little attention has been paid to joining unidirectionally-reinforced high strength natural fibre composites in the manufacture of engineered structures. Therefore the main objective of the paper is to investigate the effect of joint geometry on the strength of natural fibre composite joints. Epoxy-bonded single lap shear joints (SLJs) between henequen and sisal fibre composite elements were manufactured and tested in tension to assess the shear strength of the structural bonds. The performance of co-cured joints, termed "intermingled fibre joints" (IFJs) and "laminated fibre joints" (LFJs) was also evaluated. These IFJ and LFJ configurations possess much higher lap shear strengths than the single lap shear joints and the failure modes of the three joint configurations are compared. SLJ and LFJ joints have been modelled using finite element analysis, allowing interpretation of the experimental observations.