Cranfield, 2024

A roughly 6-month investigation and testing project to determine the mechanical properties of the silicone rubber and woven flax fibre interface for performance tyre production. Tensile testing of the standarised specimens yielded a maximum load of 560 N on average from batch 1 and 1000 N on average on the tensile testing, while maximum stress was of roughly 16.4 MPa. From the tear testing, they withstood a maximum stress concentration of approximately 0.25 MPa and a maximum tear strength of 6 kN/m, which compared to previous testing of the natural fibre on literature and the expected/required loads, is not suitable for tyre-related applications. It is believed this was due to a weak adhesion of the rubber with the flax fibre, since the failure mode appeared to be like a "degloving" of the fibre. Some further studies could be done in relation to improve surface treatments to the fibre and adhesion promoters from the rubber could be done in order to determine if such mechanical properties and behaviours could be improved.

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Please find attached below the relevant documents to this project.