Abstract
Nowadays, natural fiber-reinforced green composites are increasingly being used in the industrial field. In general, the cross-sectional shape of natural fibers is not circular and show a large variation in their cross-sectional area. However, the tensile properties of natural fibers are often evaluated on the assumption of circle cross-sectional shape. Therefore, we proposed a new method to calculate the area of natural fibers by measuring their projection widths in order to estimate the proper tensile properties. Using this method, the effect of variation in cross-sectional area on tensile properties was investigated. Additionally, we proposed a novel strength distribution function with taking account of variation in cross-sectional area, based on Weibull distribution in order to estimate the proper Weibull parameters of natural fibers except for the cross-sectional area variation. Finally, the strength distribution function of natural fibers including the cross-sectional area variation was formulated.
