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Natural Filaments Imbibing Water as Auxetic, Negative Poisson's Ratio (NPR) Materials

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Abstract

This work studies water imbibition and swelling of natural filaments - hemp, jute, and flax. The study is based on experiments accompanied by a detailed theoretical modeling. Using a custom-designed setup, the dynamic axial and radial elongation of single filaments during water imbibition is tracked. A theoretical framework was developed to describe the time evolution of strains caused by water imbibition, enabling the extraction of two key material parameters: the equilibrium axial strain 𝜀eq and a transport coefficient D (depending on the elastic properties and viscosity) characterizing imbibition kinetics. Measurements revealed that hemp swells more slowly than jute and flax, yet absorbs more water at equilibrium. Jute and flax exhibit comparable swelling rates, but flax imbibes nearly half the water mass of hemp. Notably, swelling-induced axial elongation was accompanied by radial expansion in hemp and jute, indicating negative Poisson’s ratios and auxetic behavior, while flax retained a positive Poisson’s ratio. These findings offer insight into the imbibition-swelling coupling in plant-based filaments and highlight their potential in the auxetic and bioinspired material design.

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Presenters

  • Breno Bezerra de Souza

    University of Illinois Chicago

Authors

  • Breno Bezerra de Souza

    University of Illinois Chicago

  • Alexander L. Yarin

    University of Illinois at Chicago

  • Behnam Pourdeyhimi

    North Carolina State University