Needle-punched hybrid nonwovens of flax and PPFibers - Textile semiproducts for manufacturing of fiber composites

Flax-nonwoven reinforced polypropylene has become a competitor to textile glass fabric reinforced polypropylene because of its economic and ecological advantages. Suitable application forms are needle-punched 100% flax or hybrid fabrics of flax/polypropylene manufactured of rough and fine decorticated flax. The construction of the nonwoven influences the strength, handle, matrix compatibility, and flow of the fabric. In this way, composite properties may be tailored to each end-use. The main application fields are subassemblies exposed to a medium range of stress. The method of hybrid-nonwoven manufacturing represents a technological alternative to the existing film-stacking method. Produced with lower technology, the parameters of composites of hybrid-nonwovens are comparable to properties of composites manufactured by the film-stacking method. Adhesion characteristics may be improved by addition of compatibilizers. The compatibilizers may be added to the flax-fiber surface or may be inserted into the polypropylene. All these methods lead to comparable mechanical parameters for the fiber composites.