Determination of the Mechanical Properties of Flax and Its Hybrid Flax/Carbon Composite Laminates with Vinyl Ester Resin for Wind Turbine Rotor Blades

In this research paper, the ±45 biaxially oriented woven flax and its hybrid flax/carbon composite laminates are manufactured by the vacuum bag technique using vinyl ester as the resin binder and the samples are characterized to evaluate their tensile, flexural and impact properties. Combining natural fibers with conventional materials typically creates a hybrid composite that shows optimal mechanical properties with partial sustainability. The flax/carbon variant exhibited superior tensile strength values of 383.88 MPa and 32.60 GPa, which are about 3.5 and 2.7 times higher than the flax composites, their flexural strengths are around 415.57 MPa and 25.02 GPa, respectively, and they have an impact resistance of 12.67 J.