Processing of Polymers
Processing of Polymers
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: For the past few decades, the demands for the natural fiber reinforced polymer composites were growing
Received 30 June 2020 due to the advantages such as low cost, better strength to density ratio, availability and bio degradability
Accepted 18 July 2020 etc. But due to their inherent nature they tend to absorb moisture, which results in weakening of the
Available online xxxx
composite. In this work the hybrid fiber reinforced composite was developed by incorporating woven
banana fiber and glass fiber in the Epoxy matrix. The effects of hybridization, stacking sequence and sur-
Keywords: face treatment of the banana fiber on the mechanical properties of the composite were investigated.
Woven fiber composite
Composite specimens were prepared by hand layup method followed by light compression. The speci-
Hybrid fiber composite
Banana fiber composites
mens were evaluated for the mechanical properties as per ASTM standards, it was found that the stacking
Mechanical properties sequence had negligible effect on the tensile properties whereas the flexural and impact strength were
Epoxy composite largely affected by the stacking arrangement of the woven glass fiber and banana fiber. Similarly, the
effect of chemical treatment on the mechanical properties of the composites were also evaluated. SEM
images were taken to assess the surface morphology of the composite sample.
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
ence on Newer Trends and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering: Materials Science.
1. Introduction with synthetic fibers and also fiber surface treatment [7–9] had
been suggested to improve the surface adhesion and reduce the
Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composite materials had been drawbacks of natural fibers.
used in several applications for the past several decades due to Mostafa [10] had conducted fatigue and tensile experiments to
their advantages such as better strength, low weight, corrosion determine the effect of hybridization of glass–epoxy composite
resistant, ease of manufacturability, low cost and also, they can using Jute fiber. It was reported that the hybridization resulted in
be easily tailor made based on the requirement of the application. marginal reduction in the tensile strength, whereas the usage of
Synthetic fibers such as Kevlar, carbon fiber, and Glass fiber were the natural fiber increased significantly. It was also suggested that
primarily used in most of the application. But, due to the environ- the fatigue life of the hybridized composites was comparable to
mental concerns and governmental policies the focus on using nat- that of pure glass fiber epoxy composites. Vigneshwaran et al.
ural fibers as an alternative had been widely investigated by [11] have reported that the incorporation of filler particles such
several researchers [1–3]. Natural fibers have several advantages as seashell powder can result in improvement in the mechanical,
such as environment friendly, ease of handling, low cost, availabil- thermal and vibration properties of the polymer composites. Dual
ity and strength to weight ratio comparable to that of synthetic et al. [12] prepared composites by using untreated coir fiber and
fibers. The structure of natural fiber mainly consists of lignin, cel- sisal fiber, treated coir fiber and sisal fiber and also blend of sisal
lulose, hemicellulose, and moisture. Natural fibers are hydrophilic and coir fiber reinforced in Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) matrix. The
in nature due to which they try to absorb moisture when exposed results indicated that the composite prepared by using the alkali
to wet conditions. Efforts had been made by the investigators to treated fibers had shown better properties compared with that of
minimize the disadvantages by hybridizing [4–6] the natural fibers other fibers. Also, the hybridization had a positive effect on the
mechanical properties of the PLA composite. Reddy et al. [13–14]
⇑ Corresponding author. had shown that the hybridization of reinforcements can be per-
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. V.). formed with more than two fibers. Epoxy based composite was
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.07.444
2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Newer Trends and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering:
Materials Science.
Please cite this article as: S. V., D. R., C. M. et al., Experimental investigation on the mechanical properties of woven hybrid fiber reinforced epoxy com-
posite, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.07.444
2 S. V. et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
prepared by using Jute fiber, pineapple leaf fiber and glass fiber at 2.2. Testing methods
the ratio of 1:1:1 with the total volume fraction of fibers varying
from 18% to 42% v/v. it was reported the tensile and flexural The mechanical properties of the woven fiber composite lami-
strengths were increased by the addition of reinforcing fibers in nates were evaluated as per the ASTM standards. Tensile test
the epoxy matrix. Chemical treatment of sisal fiber surface was was conducted as per D3039 testing standard, the crosshead speed
performed by Fiore et al [15]. Sodium Bi carbonate (10% w/w) of the universal testing machine (UTM) was kept at 5 mm/min.
was used treat the raw sisal fibers, the effect of chemical treatment Load vs displacement was recorded on the computer, five samples
was studied by using Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy were tested and average value was considered for analysis. Flexu-
(FTIR), pycno meter analysis and Thermo Gravimetric (TGA) analy- ral test was carried on Instron UTM as per D790 standard. Three-
sis. It was found that treatment time of 120 hrs resulted in better point bending method was followed to assess the flexural strength.
mechanical properties. Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) compos- Impact test was conducted as per ASTM D256 standard in an Izod
ites were developed by Prasad et al. [15] by reinforcing treated impact tester. Moisture absorption was one of the main drawbacks
and untreated banana fiber at different weight fractions. The effect of the natural fiber reinforced composites, hence moisture absorp-
of alkali treatment and acrylic acid on the mechanical properties tion test was also conducted to evaluate the impact of stacking
were evaluated. It was shown that the acrylic acid treated banana sequence and surface treatment. The composite samples were
fiber had shown better mechanical properties with the addition of immersed in water as per ASTM D570 standard. The composite
compatibilizer. Sem images had shown better matrix – fiber inter- samples were taken at regular intervals to note down the weight
action due to the surface treatment of the fiber [16–20]. gain due to water absorption. Finally, the surface morphology
In this work, a hybrid fiber reinforced Epoxy composite was was studied by using SEM images taken from the fractured surface
developed by using woven banana fiber and glass fiber. The effect of the tensile test specimens.
of layering arrangement, and chemical treatment on the mechani-
cal properties was evaluated.
3. Results and discussion
Please cite this article as: S. V., D. R., C. M. et al., Experimental investigation on the mechanical properties of woven hybrid fiber reinforced epoxy com-
posite, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.07.444
S. V. et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx 3
Table 2
Mechanical properties of the hybrid fiber epoxy composite.
Specimen ID Tensile strength (MPa) Tensile modulus (GPa) Flexural strength (MPa) Flexural modulus (GPa) Impact strength (kJ/m2) Water absorption (%)
A 37.2 1.688 75.2 2.555 50.1 14.2
B 53.3 2.012 121.3 4.352 65.2 4.2
C 56.2 2.022 91.5 3.524 67.2 6.5
D 83.2 3.32 111.2 4.021 75.2 6.9
E 84 3.324 145.3 5.923 77.3 5.1
F 124.7 5.422 181.2 7.384 120.3 0.5
Please cite this article as: S. V., D. R., C. M. et al., Experimental investigation on the mechanical properties of woven hybrid fiber reinforced epoxy com-
posite, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.07.444
4 S. V. et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
4. Conclusions [2] T.V. Kumar, M. Chandrasekaran, S. Padmanabhan, ARPN J. Eng. Appl. Sci. 12
(2017) 2450–2454.
[3] T.V. Kumar, M. Chandrasekaran, V. Santhanam, ARPN. J. Eng. Appl. Sci. 12
Hybrid fiber reinforced Epoxy composite specimens with pure (2017) 2401–2406.
banana fiber, pure glass fiber and hybrid fiber with varied stacking [4] N. Venkateshwaran, V. Santhanam, A. Alavudeen, Processing of Green
Composites, 2019 pp. 31-47 Springer, Singapore.
sequence were fabricated. The effect of hybridization, effect of
[5] M.R. Sanjay, B. Yogesha, Mater. Today 4 (2017) 2739–2747.
stacking sequence and the effect of surface treatment by alkali [6] V. Santhanam, M. Chandrasekaran, N. Venkateshwaran, A. Elayaperumal, J.
on the mechanical properties were studied. The experiment results Adv. Mater. Res. 622 (2013) 1320–1324.
[7] T.V. Kumar, M. Chandrasekaran, V. Santhanam, V.D. Sudharsan, IOP Conf. Series
had shown that the hybridization resulted in significant increase in
Mater. Sci. Eng. 183 (2017) 1–7.
the mechanical properties of the banana fiber composite. Stacking [8] J.I. Singh, V. Dhawan, S. Singh, K. Jangid, Mater. Today 4 (2017) 2793–2799.
sequence had negligible effect on the tensile strength, but flexural [9] V. Santhanam, M. Chandrasekaran, Appl. Mech. Mater. 591 (2014) 7–10.
strength and water absorption properties were largely improved [10] N.H. Mostafa, Mater. Res. Express 6 (2019) 085102.
[11] K. Vigneshwaran, N. Venkateshwaran, S.P. Srinivasan, Int. J. Polym. Anal. Ch. 23
by placing the woven glass fiber fabric at the extremes. Chemical (2018) 646–656.
treatment of the banana fiber resulted in 27% increase in the value [12] J. Duan, H. Wu, W. Fu, M. Hao, Polym. Compos. 39 (2018) 188–199.
of tensile strength. Improvement in surface adhesion and better [13] M.I. Reddy, M.A. Kumar, C.R. Raju, Mater. Today. 5 (2018) 458–462.
[14] V. Fiore, T. Scalici, F. Nicoletti, G. Vitale, M. Prestipino, A. Valenza, Compos. Part
fiber – matrix interaction was seen from the SEM images from B Eng. 85 (2016) 150–160.
the composite samples. [15] N. Prasad, V.K. Agarwal, S. Sinha, Iran. Polym. J. 25 (2016) 229–241.
[16] A. Godwin Antony, V. Vijayan, S. Saravanan, S. Baskar, M. Loganathan, Int. J.
Mech. Eng. Technol. 9 (2018) 681–691.
Declaration of Competing Interest [17] S. Saravanan, A. Godwin Antony, V. Vijayan, M. Loganathan, S. Baskar, 1 (2019)
785-790.
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan- [18] S. Baskar, V. Vijayan, S. Saravanan, A.V. Balan, A. Godwin Antony, Int. J. Mech.
Eng. Technol. (IJMET) 9 (12) (2018) 91–96.
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
[19] S. Baskar, M. Chandrasekaran, T. Vinod Kumar, P. Vivek, S. Ramasubramanian,
to influence the work reported in this paper. Int. J. Ambient Energy, Pages 285-288, Volume 41, Issue 3, Received 20 Jan
2018, Accepted 05 Mar 2018.
[20] S. Baskar, M. Chandrasekaran, T. Vinod Kumar, P. Vivek, L. Karikalan, Int.J.
References
Ambient Energy, Pages 296-299, Volume 41, Issue 3, Received 20 Jan 2018,
Accepted 08 Mar 2018.
[1] G.R. Arpitha, B. Yogesha, Mater. Today 4 (2017) 2755–2760.
Please cite this article as: S. V., D. R., C. M. et al., Experimental investigation on the mechanical properties of woven hybrid fiber reinforced epoxy com-
posite, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.07.444