Laminate Sample #21: Infused Flax / Epoxy with Bcomp powerRibs

This Laminate Sample shows the combination of Bcomp Amplitex flax reinforcements, bio-based Sicomin epoxy resin and an interesting flax reinforcement product called powerRibs also from Bcomp. The sample is infused (not without incident!) and trimmed for weighing and measuring. Note: the peel ply isn't a good idea with the powerRibs - it adds unnecessary resin and trouble. Bcomp suggests using bag (or release film and bag if you're worried about things sticking to the bag) only and using a heat gun to thermoform the bag to the powerRibs before you infuse. I should have listened to this advice but as with all these samples - I was playing at adding as many variables as possible! Huge thanks to Gurit USA, US distributor for the Bcomp Amplitex and powerRibs products, for the samples! For more information: https://www.gurit.com/Our-Business/Co... Bcomp Amplitex Flax Reinforcements: https://www.bcomp.ch/ And the resin: Sicomin InfuGreen 810: http://www.sicomin.com/products/epoxy... I love the way the flax looks and it has very useful mechanical properties - if not as stiff or strong as e-glass or carbon. The powerRibs is an interesting way to apply a stiffening grid without any core or complicated tooling. It is available in two "mesh" sizes - this is the larger one. Given the low density of flax fiber, the fiber volume fraction vs. fiber weight fraction relationship is very different than with e-glass or even carbon. For a given fiber volume, the flax is half the weight of 'glass. When I measured out the resin, I took the fiber weight (about 200g) and doubled it (400g) to estimate the resin usage instead of just making 250g of resin like I would for e-glass. And lets not forget my two big mistakes here: too small a bag led to careless sealing and cutting it close to the peel-ply. Not surprisingly I had a small leak that made a mess over time. One random fiber or peel-ply strand and you have a tiny leak just waiting to mess stuff up. These samples are teaching tools too - better to see me make a mistake and avoid doing it yourself! Visit explorecomposites.com for more.