Experimental Studies on Mechanical and Failure Behaviour of Single Lap Joints of Woven Jute-Hemp Fabric Reinforced Polymeric Composite Laminates

In the aerospace industry, large aircrafts employ composite materials for making complex structures which not only reduces weight and cost but also reduces the number of joints. Irrespective of that joining of structures cannot be avoided and for that mechanical fasteners such as rivets and bolts are employed along with adhesive bonding. Further, in recent years natural fibers have been studied extensively for their numerous advantages and have already been made into several automotive applications. Keeping these current trends in mind an attempt is made to investigate the joining behavior of natural fiber composites experimentally. So in this study, the ultimate failure load, bearing strength and the dominating failure mode of jute-hemp fabric-reinforced polymeric composites joined using single and double-bolted configurations are studied. The polymeric composite laminates were successfully fabricated using resin infusion technique and test specimens were fabricated following ASTM D5961M-10 standard. The ultimate failure load for a double-bolted joint configuration was almost twice that of a single-bolted joint configuration. The failure analysis conducted using a scanning electron microscope revealed net tension as the main failure mode for both cases of bolted joints.