Novel sandwich structure of composite-metal laminates based on cellulosic woven pineapple leaf fibre.

Fibre metal laminates (FMLs) are the contemporary sandwich materials that have been employed in the aerospace industries. The commercially available synthetic fibre based FMLs have shown excellent fatigue, impact and specific properties over those of metallic alloys. In order to explore the potential of environmental friendly cellulosic based materials, this research work aims to characterise the mechanical properties of novel woven pineapple leaf fibre reinforced metal laminates which were prepared through the hot compression moulding technique. For the comparison purpose, the mechanical properties of woven pineapple leaf fabrics and pineapple leaf fibre reinforced composite laminates were determined as well. It was concluded that the pineapple leaf fibre reinforced metal laminates evidenced salient mechanical and specific properties over pineapple leaf fabrics and composites. The specific tensile strength of metal laminates was 230.87% and 62.21% higher than those of the pineapple leaf fabrics and composite laminates whereas the specific flexural strength of metal laminates was 174.91% higher than composite laminates. Besides that, metal laminates also showed an impact strength of 91.49 kJ/m2 which was 143.13% greater than that of the composite laminates. The results indeed showed that the pineapple based FMLs could be considered as the promising and sustainable sandwich materials in future structural applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]