Abstract
Over the last few years, a number of researchers have been involved in investigating the exploitation of natural fibres as load bearing constituents in composite materials. The use of such materials in composites has increased due to their relative cheapness, their ability to recycle and their mechanical and physical properties. Composites based on natural fibbers have many advantages over their synthetic counterparts owing to their low cost, low density, high specific strength and stiffness, excellent sound- absorbing and high impact energy absorption. The technical hemp as fast-growing plant has prospect in the construction field in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. A special attention is paid to the use of fibrous hemp as well as hemp hurds (nonfibrous fraction hemp stalk) in the building materials preparing in various forms, such as insulation boards, mass-spraying hempcrete for the production of lightweight composites, where it is in the role of filler.
The presence of surface impurities and the large amount of hydroxyl groups make plant fibbers less attractive for reinforcement of composites. Incompability of interface between fibres and matrix, the tendency to form aggregates during processing and poor resistance to moisture can be eliminated by physical/chemical treatments of fibbers and/or matrix or the use of coupling agents.
In this paper, some aspects of durability of hardened composites based on chemically modified of hemp hurds slices and MgO-cement as binding agents after long termed storage in deionised water by testing on some important material properties as water absorbability, thermal conductivity coefficient, apparent density and compressive strength was studied.
