Abstract
In this study, wear resistance and some selected physical properties of pawpaw–glass fiber hybrid reinforced epoxy composites were investigated. Two different layers of pawpaw stem—linear and network structures—were extracted and chemically modified. Hybrid reinforced composites were developed comparatively from the two fiber structures and glass fiber using hand lay-up in an open mold production process. The wear resistance was studied via the use of a Taber Abrasion Tester while selected physical properties were also investigated. The influence of the fiber structure on the properties examined revealed that network structured pawpaw fiber was the best as reinforcement compared to the linearly structured fiber. The addition of these vegetable fibers to epoxy resin brought about improved thermal conductivity and increased the curing rate while the wear resistance of the corresponding developed composites were enhanced by 3 wt% and 15 wt% of fibers from linear and network pawpaw fibers. It was noticed that linearly structured pawpaw fiber had its best result at 3 wt% while network structured pawpaw fiber had its best result at 15 wt%.
Highlights
The use of natural or synthetic fibers for the development of composite materials has shown significant uses in a variety of fields
Findings from these results revealed that both fiber structure and content were responsible for the enhancement of the wear resistance of the composites
This result was in agreement with findings from previous researchers who reported that the addition of glass fiber is recommended for natural fiber based polymer composites in order to enhance the wear characteristics of the composites [21,22]
Summary
The use of natural or synthetic fibers for the development of composite materials has shown significant uses in a variety of fields. For machine-driven applications, like mechanical gear pair, an enhancement of about 50% in the load-carrying capacity was achieved when 28% glass fiber reinforcement was added to polyoxymethylene (POM) with a lower specific wear rate when equaled to unreinforced POM [2]. Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) display enhanced mechanical properties, like a high strength–to-weight ratio, good resistance to corrosion, fatigue, and temperature changes with a low maintenance cost making the material appropriate for marine propellers [6]. The reinforcements being used for the development of composite materials are man-made and are referred to as artificial fibers They are mainly produced from silicon dioxide through a series of physical and chemical processing methods, which are too expensive for mass production. The fiber was extracted using a dew retting process followed by manual sorting of the different layers
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