Assessment of Mechanical and Tribological Properties of Flax/Kenaf/Glass/Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites

Abstract

Abstract Composites are playing significant role in material industries, which seek composites to be cost-effective and environment friendly materials. Natural fibre are new fibre which has some characters that can be useful for material industries .Flax and kenaf one of the many natural fibre which are light in weight and biodegradable in nature. However, the mechanical properties of natural fibre are lacking behind compare to synthetic fibre .Thus, assessment of mechanical properties of natural fibre is necessary to improve the structural or mechanical application by hybridization. In this study , three point bending (flexural) test , barcol hardness , vibration test and three body abrasive wear properties are evaluated .The hardness of carbon fibre is 76.6% more than flax fibre ,which make carbon fibre more brittle material . Flexural modulus of synthetic fibre is moderately higher than natural fibre .The wear rate is determine with sliding distance of 1000m and applied load of 25.5N when applied on specimen, the natural fibre has low wear rate which make it suitable in abrasive environment. The impact energy storage capacity of glass fibre is more than other fibers such as carbon, flex, kenaf fibre. Vibration frequency of natural fibre is comparatively similar to synthetic fibre, and carbon fibre has natural frequency 28.9% more than kenaf fibre. For structural application, having higher natural frequency helps in designing mechanical components. Future scope of natural fibre is by making hybrid composite with synthetic fibre which may be a new revolution to composite materials. This increases the degradation life and performance of composite.