JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #80 - April 2013 - 27

1) Guarantee user manufacturers a supply
that is stable in terms of volume and price
for a range of fibres and reinforcements.
According to a study carried out jointly
in 2011 by the French Environment and
Energy Management Agency (Ademe)
and FRD, an R&D competence centre
and engineering platform, the cultivation
of flax and hemp for fibres has been rising
steadily for over a decade to reach an average production of 210,000 metric tons per
year for Europe. France plays a major role,
accounting for 80% of European production through its comprehensive industrial
organization, from the first processing step
(defibration) through the second and third
processing steps (textile reinforcements).
The purpose of Sinfoni is to coordinate
this organization to create a coherent,
robust supply chain capable of offering
an extended range of fibres and fibrous
reinforcements of guaranteed quality
under a collective seal of approval. Setting
it up depends especially on improving the
expertise of fibre/reinforcement producers
in things like batch preparation, achieving consistent quality for each targeted
application, and multi-year storage, to
guarantee readily obtainable, reproducible
performance levels that comply with the
standards of user manufacturers.
The actual organization of the supply chain
has already begun, relying on the expertise
in composite materials of well-known
players like AFT Plasturgie and Ecotechnilin for reinforcements, or LCDA and Calira
for fibre production.
2) Improving control over the performance
of marketed reinforcement solutions.
Most of Sinfoni’s resources will be focused
on this goal, the idea being to develop the
innovations that will lead to the gradual
improvement (through successive generations) of the range of fibres and reinforcements developed.
Five areas for innovation are being pursued:
- Improving the surface properties and
aspect ratio of the marketed fibres to
increase their adhesion in matrices ;
- Developing functionalization solutions

Available natural reinforcements for composites applications

Reinforcements made
by natural fibres

(source FRD)

Mechanical characteristics of
composites containing natural reinforcements
UD 100% flax (300 g/m² - 5 plies) / Epoxy resin

Unidirectionals

Tensile modulus E = 26,6 GPa
Tensile strength S = 277 MPa
Fabric 100% flax (170 g/m² - 12 plies) / Epoxy resin

Woven fabrics

Tensile modulus E = 19,2 GPa
Tensile strength S = 236 MPa
Multi-axial 45° 100% flax (820 g/m² - 2 plies) / Epoxy resin

Multi-axials

Tensile modulus at 0° E = 17,6 GPa
Tensile strength a 0° S = 147 MPa
Non-woven 100% flax (1500 g/m² - 1 ply) / Epoxy resin

Non-wovens

Tensile modulus E = 7,2 GPa
Tensile strength S = 83 MPa

(e.g. fire retardancy and waterproofing)
for fibres and reinforcements in order to
market treated flax and hemp fibres;
- Improving the forming processes (especially textile) to optimize the developed
reinforcements (nonwovens, rovings, UD,
multiaxials...);
- Creating quality standards that are acceptable to all stakeholders in the value chain.
The aim is to supply adapted materials,
restricting technical spec sheets to the truly
key properties;
- Learning to predict reinforcement
performance in a finished part through
the development of numerical simulation
models and a reference database.

will also provide the opportunity to include
all the chain’s complementary players that
are not consortium members, e.g. organic
matrix and resin producers, equipment
manufacturers, processors, and ecodesign
and life cycle analysis (LCA) specialists.

3) Demonstrating the feasibility of these
innovations within the framework of industrial applications.
All innovations will be developed as a function of the user specifications provided by
Sinfoni’s customers, and validated through
the industrial tests in force for the target
sectors: concrete (Lafarge), insulation
(Soprema), composites (Faurecia, Stratiforme, Bombardier).

The growing demand for biosourced composites calls for a structured raw-material
supply chain that is reliable and up to par for
the advantages of technical flax and hemp
fibres. The Sinfoni consortium members
have organized accordingly to come up with
the right industrial solutions that include the
value chain’s complementary players (fibre
and reinforcement producers, end manufacturers, and university laboratories).
To make these reinforcement solutions
available, FRD has just updated in 2013
what is the most comprehensive catalogue
of reinforcement solutions for composites,
including compounds, nonwovens, unidirectionals, multiaxials and fabrics. n

4) Disseminating the results
An Interest Club will be created by the end
of 2013 to spread this vision more widely
and provide the opportunity to demonstrate that the solutions developed are
robust, adapt them to other specifications,
and act as a group to remove all obstacles
to the organization of the supply chain. It

In parallel, a skills network will be set up
during the five years of the project to create
a technological platform that will help
manufacturers and laboratories to access
the knowhow being developed on fibre
fractionation, the optimization of textile
forming processes, or natural reinforcement
functionalization.

Growing demand

No80 April 2013

More information:
www.f-r-d.fr

/ jec composites magazine 27
http://www.f-r-d.fr
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #80 - April 2013

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