Analysis of influence of fiber volume of bamboo-areca composite material using Taguchi optimization technique

Abstract

Bamboo is one of the bio-fibers that is finding its application in engineering and households due to its abundant availability and promising strength. Similarly, areca fiber is been used as a reinforcement material in many applications. In the current research, the composite of Bamboo and areca fiber is prepared for impact-strength application. The effects of the volume of bamboo, areca, and epoxy resin are investigated for impact strength using Taguchi analysis. The L9 orthogonal arrays have been employed for investigating the combination of fibers and resin for the preparation of composite. The composite material is prepared using the hand layup technique of three different layers, the first layer of bamboo, the second of areca, and the third layer of bamboo fiber respectively. Signal to Noise ratio and analysis of variance methodology have been used to determine the significance of each fiber in achieving the impact strength of the material. The results showed that the fiber volume of Bamboo layer 1 is the most influential parameter for impact strength followed by the volume of areca fiber. The optimized parameter for higher impact strength is achieved using taguchi analysis for the combination of Bamboo Layer 1 = 14 g, Areca = 20 g, Bamboo Layer 2 = 10 g, and Epoxy resin = 120 g. The confirmation test is conducted to validate the predicted values with actual value and a difference of 5.84 J/cm2 is obtained.