Natural fibre-reinforced composite parts for automotive applications

In this paper, we conduct a brief revision of the state-of-the-art on vegetable fibre-reinforced composite applications in the automotive industry. We then present some results for the dynamic characterisation of an auto part made of jute fibres and an equivalent one made of traditional glass fibres, where the increase in damping is most evident. An inverse characterisation method based on the free vibration response of composite plate specimens is also applied to estimate damped material parameters in vegetable fibre-reinforced composites. The obtained results are compared with the ones obtained with equivalent specimens made of glass fibre and future application of this technique to the study of environmental parameters on the material properties is proposed.

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