Comparative Analysis of the Effect of Fibre Architecture on the Tensile Properties of Sisal Fibre Reinforced Polyethylene Polymer Composite

Abstract

This work investigates the effect of fibre architecture on the mechanical properties of composite laminates fabricated from natural sisal fibres reinforced with polyethylene polymer matrix. The main objective for this is to determine which architectural pattern produces the best material in terms of mechanical properties that can be employed for use in the fabrication of engineering components to replace the more expensive components produced from the highly expensive synthetic fibre materials. Four fibre architectural patterns were chosen and tailor-made for the study namely;±45° angled ply, 0°/90° cross ply, 90° and 0°unidirectional plies. A five layered composite laminates were manufactured from the fabrics and subjected to mechanical tensile tests using Instron universal testing machine (model 4467) having 30kN load cell attached to it and an extensometer gauge length 75mm at a crosshead speed of 200mm/min. The result of the mechanical tests revealed that the 90° laminate gives the best mechanical properties such as; elastic modulus, yield strength and tensile strength amongst the fabricated composite laminates. It was followed by the ±45° angle plied laminate, the 90° unidirectional fibre laminate and lastly the 0°unidirectional fibre laminate has the lowest mechanical properties amongst all the laminates tested. SEM micrographs of the fractured surfaces reveal that the failure modes of the laminates are characterized mostly by fibre-matrix debonding, fibre delamination, fibre splitting, fibre cracking and so on.