An enhanced cross-sectional analysis to evaluate tensile properties of silk waste fibers
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: To promote sustainability and circular economy, silk waste could be recycled and upscaled into nonwoven fabrics for composite production. With such goal in mind, a thorough characterization of the tensile properties of silk waste fibers was conducted. Silk is a natural protein fiber, appreciated and widely used in the textile industry. It is composed of fibroin and sericin, the latter being removed during the degumming process. A major challenge in characterizing silk fibers is their non-circular cross-section, which leads to significant errors in the evaluation of tensile properties when a cylindrical model is assumed. Both raw and degummed silk waste fibers were investigated, using SEM, optical microscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy and single fiber tensile tests. A novel method was proposed to refine the analysis of the cross-section, correcting the error introduced by the cylindrical approximation. Tensile strength, strain at break and Young’s modulus were described by gage length dependent two-parameter Weibull distributions. The experimental campaign indicated that degumming effectively removed sericin and resulted in higher strength and modulus. The proposed correction method for the cross-section significantly affected Weibull parameters, particularly for raw fibers, resulting in larger values of strength and modulus scale parameters. An equivalent fibroin cross-section model was proposed as well, finding a good agreement with the experimental results obtained from degummed fibers, thus confirming the limited load-carrying capability of sericin. This study provides a foundation for refined analysis of the properties of silk waste fibers to be used for composite materials.
Language: English
Subfield: Biomaterials
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,480
OpenAlex ID: W4413237766