| Abstract |
There has been a concern over many years on the usage of existing metallic and ceramicbased
biomaterials for implant design and development due to the necessity of conducting
operations for patients to remove and maintain implants after they complete their desired functions.
Recently, the development of biodegradable polymers like poly(glycolic acid), poly(lactic acid),
and their co-polymers etc. have emerged and provided an entirely new concept to tackle this
problem as these polymers can be fully or partly degraded or resorbed by the human body, i.e. an
extra operation for removing the implants can be avoided, which can highly alleviate the hard
feeling of the patients that come from psychological and physiological pressures. Natural fibres
have been well recognized as potential micro-reinforcements for the enhancement of mechanical,
thermal and structural properties of biodegradable polymer composites, without generating any
harmful by-products and adverse effects during their degrading process to the patients. These
natural fibers can be mainly classified depending on their origin into two categories; they are (i)
plant-based and (ii) animal-based natural fibers, like spider and silkworm silks.
Since the last decade, silkworm silks have been used as reinforcements for fabricating biocomposites.
However, no comprehensive study, particularly on the correlation between the
mechanical properties of the composites, and fiber orientations and configurations has been done to
date. In this paper, an in depth study on the mechanical properties of silk/epoxy composites with
different fiber contents and orientations, through experimental approach and fractographic
examinations will be conducted. Tensile property tests for all silk/epoxy composite samples will be
performed. Failure samples will be examined by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) to
investigate the failure mechanism of the composites. |
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