Enhancement of bending strength properties of two wood species reinforced with two types of carbon fibre fabrics and two layouts

ABSTRACT This work examined the enhancement of bending strength properties of two wood species, namely fir and pine, reinforced with two carbon fibre fabrics (CFF) of different areal weight, in two different layouts. CFF applied in the bottom surfaces of the specimens (‘F’-type) and in the second wrapped in the bottom surfaces and up to the half of the lateral surfaces (‘U’-type).The results indicated that samples which are reinforced with CCF show higher MOR and MOE values than the controls and this improvement was found to be significantly different. The reinforcement layout affected the bending properties of both pine and fir wood, since the corresponding values are higher in U-shaped reinforcement than in F-type reinforcement, at identical CFF areal weights. In the case of fir wood, the CFF areal weight did not significantly affect the bending properties.