To stop climate change and to protect our natural habitat as well as biodiversity the whole society has to take action. Especially the building and automotive industries are characterized by huge resource and energy consumption als well as pollution of air and environment due to harmful emissions from production processes or the technical use of non-biodegradable and non-recyclable resources and materials. [1] These critical discussions already started in the 1990s. Since then, intensive research work has been done internationally, to investigate the utilization and processability of renewable and biodegradable resources, e.g. the use of natural fibers like wood or bast (hemp or linen) as reinforcements in composite materials again or the direct use of technical biopolymers, e.g. cellulose, which are basically the components of plant fibers and tissue. [2,3]

Besides the very important material science to utilization and processability of new raw materials, the development of standardized test methods for performance and lifetime prediction based on the identification of material-specific defects and the interpretation of their evolution due to service loading is mandatory for the assessment of the technological potential and the scientific basis for technical implementation. [4] This study presents experimental approaches on three different material systems (cellulose composite, wood composite, bast fiber-reinforced plastic) for the reproducible acquisition of characteristic material values, which are needed to estimate the suitability for the intended application.

Test method design was focused on the definition of application limits with regard to mechanical (quasi-static , fatigue) and functional (humidity, temperature) loading, the definition of optimization potential with regard to the manufacturing process (parchmentizing, bonding, organic sheet production) as well as the definition of guidelines for component design (Figure 1).   

References

[1] World Wide Fund For Nature WWF, 2018, Gland, ISBN 978-2-940529-90-2.
[2] H.-J. Endres, A. Siebert-Raths Hanser, 2009, ISBN 978-3-446416-83-3.
[3] A. Hodzic, R. Shanks Woodhead Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-0-85709-524-4.
[4] R. V. Scholz Dissertation, 2022, TU Dortmund University, Springer Vieweg Verlag, Wiesbaden, ISBN 978-3-658-37539-3.