The drawback of biobased polymer matrix composites (PMCs) is their limited temperature stability, resulting from degradation, which restricts their processability in established composite manufacturing processes requiring elevated temperatures. These key issues not only affect the mechanical properties but ultimately limit the utilization of flax fibers as fiber reinforcement in PMCs. In this study, kinetic models for the thermal degradation of flax fibers and PA11 are derived and combined with a model for thermo-chemical fiber degradation. Selective degradation of the fibers and mechanical testing establishes a link between degradation and the accompanying deterioration of the mechanical performance. The deterioration of flax fiber mechanical properties under concurrent thermal and thermo-chemical degradation is primarily governed by the thermos-chemical contribution (chain scission) up to 3% thermal degradation, beyond which the influence of thermal degradation becomes evident. Even 1% thermal degradation of flax fibers results in a pronounced reduction in their mechanical performance. In contrast, equal degradation values enhance the PMCs' strength, which may be attributed to improved fiber-matrix interactions. Compiling results into processing maps establishes a framework for designing tailored processing of temperature-sensitive materials, offering transfer opportunities to individual processing conditions and heat treatments, enabling broader research on bio-based PMCs.

Utilization of sustainable feedstocks to fabricate renewable thermosetting epoxy resins has been of great interest recently; however, their translation into composite structures and benchmark comparisons are poorly understood. Phloroglucinol is a phenolic molecule obtained from brown algae, and its epoxidized form is a high viscosity, high reactivity monomer. In this study, the potential of epoxidized phloroglucinol as a laminating resin was examined in comparison with a bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (BADGE) epoxy monomer employing the Epikure 04908 linear amine hardener system. Utilization of a reactive diluent for PHTE resin was necessary for room temperature laminating applications to reduce viscosity, and the thermomechanical properties of PHTE-based resins and composites are superior to those of BADGE systems.

With Mars colonisation becoming a reality for the near future, it is of importance to analyse how crew and cargo can be transported between Earth and a colony on Mars. This article is a feasibility and design study of a launch vehicle whose mission is to shuttle crew and cargo from Low Mars Orbit to a colony on the Martian surface. A single-stage reusable rocket has been selected to fulfil this mission, code-named Charon. The mission profile of such a vehicle was created, leading to a Maximum Growth Allowance (MGA) Delta-V budget of 6.2 km/s. With the mission profile in mind, each subsystem underwent a preliminary design. With reliability and maintainability in mind, subsystems were designed for redundancy and modularity, and an abort system was included for an added level of safety. The iterative design process resulted in a vehicle with a MGA mass of 198.7 tons, capable of transporting 1200 kg of cargo and a crew of 6 people to a 500 km orbit and back. The preliminary design of the vehicle is deemed safe. Following a fault tree analysis, the Single Launch Loss of Mission, Vehicle and Crew (SL-LOM, SL-LOV, SL-LOC) probabilities are computed to be of 0.975%, 0.12%, and 0.079%. Finally, from the vehicle’s constraints on the base, the feasibility of the project has been reflected upon. It is deemed that such a concept is of high interest only when the base is already operational, due to the launch and maintenance infrastructure that it requires, as well as the power it requires from the Martian base.