Composites have been found to be the most promising and discerning material available in this century. Presently, composites reinforced with fibers of synthetic or natural materials are gaining more importance as demands for lightweight materials with high strength for specific applications are growing in the market. Fiber-reinforced polymer composite offers not only high strength to weight ratio, but also reveals exceptional properties such as high durability; stiffness; damping property; flexural strength; and resistance to corrosion, wear, impact, and fire. These wide ranges of diverse features have led composite materials to find applications in mechanical, construction, aerospace, automobile, biomedical, marine, and many other manufacturing industries. Performance of composite materials predominantly depends on their constituent elements and manufacturing techniques, therefore, functional properties of various fibers available worldwide, their classifications, and the manufacturing techniques used to fabricate the composite materials need to be studied in order to figure out the optimized characteristic of the material for the desired application. An overview of a diverse range of fibers, their properties, functionality, classification, and various fiber composite manufacturing techniques is presented to discover the optimized fiber-reinforced composite material for significant applications. Their exceptional performance in the numerous fields of applications have made fiber-reinforced composite materials a promising alternative over solitary metals or alloys.

/pdf/fiber-reinforced-polymer-composites-manufacturing-properties-f0ipegmttq.pdf

Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites: Manufacturing, Properties, and Applications.

Utilization of agricultural and forest industry waste and residues in natural fiber-polymer composites: A review

https://cyberleninka.org/article/n/1063973.pdf

Epoxy resins modified with elastomers and surface-modified silica nanoparticles

This study is to investigate the mechanical, hygral, and interfacial strength of continuous bamboo fiber reinforced epoxy composites. The untreated and alkali-treated continuous bamboo fibers were prepared from cutting the nature bamboo culm. The basic characteristics of the bamboo fibers, such as density, equivalent diameter, and tensile properties were experimentally measured. The bamboo fiber reinforced epoxy (BF/EP) composites were fabricated by the resin transfer molding (RTM) process with the resulting fiber volume fraction about 42%. The strength of bamboo fiber was found to decrease with the alkaline treatment. However, alkali-treated bamboo fiber reinforced epoxy composites acquired better tensile strength than those with untreated bamboo fibers. The untreated bamboo fiber was believed to have weak interface with the epoxy resin, which was verified by the subsequent interface strength tests. The size effect of bamboo fibers on the tensile properties of the BF/EP composites were also studied. The results showed that the tensile strength and Young's modulus of the composite increase with the decrease of the bamboo fiber diameter. For the hygrothermal aging test, BF/EP composites are highly sensitive to moisture absorption, and the moisture has a detrimental effect on the mechanical properties of the BF/EP composite.

The mechanical, hygral, and interfacial strength of continuous bamboo fiber reinforced epoxy composites

Wearable devices provide an alternative pathway to clinical diagnostics by exploiting various physical, chemical and biological sensors to mine physiological (biophysical and/or biochemical) information in real time (preferably, continuously) and in a non-invasive or minimally invasive manner. These sensors can be worn in the form of glasses, jewellery, face masks, wristwatches, fitness bands, tattoo-like devices, bandages or other patches, and textiles. Wearables such as smartwatches have already proved their capability for the early detection and monitoring of the progression and treatment of various diseases, such as COVID-19 and Parkinson disease, through biophysical signals. Next-generation wearable sensors that enable the multimodal and/or multiplexed measurement of physical parameters and biochemical markers in real time and continuously could be a transformative technology for diagnostics, allowing for high-resolution and time-resolved historical recording of the health status of an individual. In this Review, we examine the building blocks of such wearable sensors, including the substrate materials, sensing mechanisms, power modules and decision-making units, by reflecting on the recent developments in the materials, engineering and data science of these components. Finally, we synthesize current trends in the field to provide predictions for the future trajectory of wearable sensors. 

/pdf/end-to-end-design-of-wearable-sensors-1qoptprj.pdf

End-to-end design of wearable sensors

Abstract Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a nontoxic and thermoplastic polymer which is completely biodegradable. PVA shows excellent mechanical and thermal properties due to better interfacial adhesion with reinforcing material such as fibers, particles or flakes because of which it can be used for fabrication of composite. PVA based fiber or particle reinforcing composites have gained interest in many applications in different fields. This paper reviews the mechanical and water absorption properties studied by different researcher and some of them were discussed here. The article also focused on the effect on the mechanical properties on PVA based composites with particle or fiber used as reinforcing material at nano/micro level and different polymers used to prepare PVA blend films. The major disadvantage of PVA based composites/films is higher water uptake or solubility in water. To over this negative aspect, many researchers studied crosslinking of PVA based composites/films, which are also discussed in the article. This review concludes that PVA has the potential for use in the synthesis of composites/films with their abundant applications.

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jmbm-2017-0027/pdf

A review on mechanical and water absorption properties of polyvinyl alcohol based composites/films

Human cadaveric donors are essential for research in the anatomical sciences. However, many research papers in the anatomical sciences often omit a statement regarding the ethical use of the donor cadavers or, as no current standardized versions exist, use language that is extremely varied. To rectify this issue, 22 editors‐in‐chief of anatomical journals, representing 17 different countries, developed standardized and simplified language that can be used by authors of studies that use human cadaveric tissues. The goal of these editor recommendations is to standardize the writing approach by which the ethical use of cadaveric donors is acknowledged in anatomical studies that use donor human cadavers. Such sections in anatomical papers will help elevate our discipline and promote standardized language use in others non anatomy journals and also other media outlets that use cadaveric tissues.

/pdf/standardized-statement-for-the-ethical-use-of-human-216vmi7n.pdf

Standardized statement for the ethical use of human cadaveric tissues in anatomy research papers: Recommendations from Anatomical Journal Editors‐in‐Chief

Experimental Analysis on Carbon Residuum Transformed Epoxy Resin: Chicken Feather Fiber Hybrid Composite

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2053-1591/ab4332/pdf

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis and Creep-recovery behaviour of Polyvinyl Alcohol based cross-linked Biocomposite reinforced with Basalt fiber

Owing to their biodegradable nature and cost-effectiveness, natural fibers have attracted the attention of various material scientists. One such fiber is human hair (HH), which is viscoelastic-plastic in nature and encloses well-characterized microstructures within it. An important aspect is that a strand of HH having a diameter of 60 μm is capable of withstanding a force of 100–150 grams/fiber. However, wastage of HH on an enormous scale poses an environmental challenge. Therefore, the authors have utilized this novel fiber in the field of composites and revealed the systematic methodology of fabricating HH with polymers using the wet hand lay-up technique. The diverse compositions of polymer-HH composite, with varying HH weight percentages (wt.%) of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 %, were put to investigation. In the present work, treatment of HH with potassium hydroxide and curing of polymer further enhanced the bonding properties of composites. The specimens were examined micro-structurally through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) tests, followed by the mechanical tests: tensile, compression, flexural, hardness, and impact. Both the microstructural and mechanical tests complemented each other and confirmed that the cured polymer composite speckled with 7 wt.% of HH fiber content was the best of all formulations, as it provided the highest magnification in mechanical properties relative to neat polymer. Finally, the thermal analysis was done via thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermal analysis (DTA) techniques.

V. K. Singh

Papers

A review on mechanical and water absorption properties of polyvinyl alcohol based composites/films

Standardized statement for the ethical use of human cadaveric tissues in anatomy research papers: Recommendations from Anatomical Journal Editors‐in‐Chief

Experimental Analysis on Carbon Residuum Transformed Epoxy Resin: Chicken Feather Fiber Hybrid Composite

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis and Creep-recovery behaviour of Polyvinyl Alcohol based cross-linked Biocomposite reinforced with Basalt fiber

Mechanical, Microstructural and Thermal Characterization of Epoxy-Based Human Hair–Reinforced Composites