Bamboo fibers demonstrate enormous potential as the reinforcement phase in composite materials. In this study, in order to find suitable NaOH concentration for bamboo fiber treatment, bamboo fibers were treated with 2 wt.%, 6 wt.% and 10 wt.% NaOH solutions for 12 h, respectively. We determined that 6 wt.% NaOH treated bamboo fibers were optimal for the fabrication of bamboo fiber composites by single fiber tensile test, single fiber pull-out test, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The short length bamboo fibers treated with 6 wt.% NaOH solutions were well dispersed in the epoxy matrix by a new preparation method. The effect of fiber content and fiber length on the mechanical behavior of bamboo fiber reinforced epoxy composites was investigated. The results confirmed that fracture toughness and flexural modulus of the composites monotonically increased with fiber length and content. However, for all samples, composites showed negligible difference on the flexural strength. The fracture surfaces of the composites were observed by SEM, revealing that fiber breakage, matrix cracking, debonding, and fiber pull out were major failure types. In addition, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was carried out to investigate the thermal behavior of both bamboo fibers and composites.

As a type of environmentally-friendly and low-cost natural material, bamboo fibers exhibit excellent mechanical properties. In this study, a bamboo fiber reinforced polybenzoxazine composite was fabricated by an improved hot-pressing process. The dynamic compressive behaviors of neat benzoxazine and its composite were comparatively studied by an SHPB (split Hopkinson pressure bar) apparatus. SHPB tests showed that the benzoxazine matrix and its composite exhibited significantly positive strain rate sensitivity at nominal strain rates in the range of 0.006–2500/s. During the impact loadings, the progressive deformation and failure of neat benzoxazine and bamboo composite were investigated by capturing real-time images with a high-speed camera. In comparison with neat benzoxazine, the bamboo composite had slightly higher maximum compressive stress under the same strain rates. It is noteworthy that the crashworthiness of the composite was remarkably better than that of neat benzoxazine due to the incorporation of bamboo fibers. For example, the energy absorption of bamboo composite was 105.7% higher than that of neat benzoxazine at a strain rate of 2500/s. The dynamic compressive properties of benzoxazine resin were much better than most of the conventional thermosetting resins. These results could guide the future application of this kind of composites.