Effect of Ghatti gum content on mechanical properties of epoxy composite using multicriteria optimization techniques

Abstract

In the recent years particles-based composites are more attractive due to many of the applications. The reinforcing of particles, micro or nano powders enhanced the properties by crosslinking with polymers. The partial based polymer composites are playing a major role in enhancing the strength of pure resins. In many of common particle reinforcements materials are fly ash, Nano clay, silica powders etc… these are more predominately used to enhance the properties of the pure resin and even with fiber reinforced composites. This paper focuses on the effect of microns size natural powder reinforcement in synthetic resin to evaluate the tensile, flexural, impact and hardness properties behavior of composites. The Gum Ghatti which is obtained from the plant and processed to obtain the powder. The 5, 10, 15 and 20 % of gum Ghatti natural powders are reinforced in Araldite LY 556 (Bisphinol-A-Diglycidyl-ether) epoxy resin to observe the mechanical strength and interfacial adhesion strength between matrixes with reinforcement materials. These composites are post-cured at 80℃ for three hours to improve the residual stresses. The 10% natural particular reinforcement exhibits better tensile and flexural properties as compared to other compositions. However, Barcol hardness number of 15 percentage of reinforcements shows better. These mechanical properties are further analyzed using MCDM techniques to identify best weight fraction. The Preference Selection Index (PSI), Multiobjective Optimization on The Basis of Ratio Analysis (MOORA), Combinative Distance-based Assessment (COMDAS), VIekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranje (VIKOR), Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methods are used and observed that 10% gum Ghatti exhibited better mechanical properties.