Effect of chemical treatment and fiber loading on various properties of Bauhinia vahlii bast fibers/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene composites for automotive body parts

Abstract

AbstractCurrently, automobile industries are paying more attention on fabricating light weight materials for making vehicle body parts. So lots of research work is been carried out on natural fibers owing to their light weight and eco‐friendly nature. In this current research, composites were fabricated by reinforcing treated Bauhinia vahlii bast fiber (BV) fibers with Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) thermoplastic polymer for making light weight automobile parts. Various properties like static and dynamic mechanical properties, thermal as well as morphological properties were studied. To get a better compatibility with ABS matrix, surfaces of fibers were treated with various chemicals. An enhancement in mechanical properties was noticed with the increase in treated BV fiber loading till optimum (23 wt%) thereafter declines. The highest mechanical properties obtained at optimum fiber loading was recorded as 68.94 MPa of tensile strength, 7.02 GPa of young's modulus, 95.27 MPa of flexural strength and 33.25 kJ/m2 of impact strength. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used for analysis. Overall, the results show that reinforcing ABS matrix with BV filler improves the characteristics of the manufactured composite materials effectively. It was found that composites fabricated from 23 wt% fiber content shows superior static and dynamic mechanical properties as well as thermal properties as compared with other fabricated composites and can be used for making lightweight automobile parts.