Experimental and Numerical Evaluation of Tensile Strength of Horse Hair-Glass Fiber/Epoxy Hybrid Composites

Abstract

Natural fibers are environmentally friendly with less weight and energy conservation than the synthetic fibers. The present study assessed on mechanical properties of the hybrid composite which is composed of horsehair and glass fiber materials using experimental methods and Digimat simulation. The impact of weight percentage and orientation of fiber on mechanical properties such as tensile strength is investigated. The total weight of the fiber was 70% and the matrix was 30%. The specimen was prepared using the method of hand layup process. The weight percentage increment was 20% and the orientation of the fiber was 0–900 and 0–900. By doing Digimat simulation and testing the composite; it was rich that there is a basic effect of weight percentage and orientation in mechanical property of composite. With a different weight percentage of fiber, the maximum tensile strength was 282.97Mpa in the experiment result and 290 Mpa Digimat simulation result which is 56% of glass fiber plus 14% of horse hair fiber plus 30% of epoxy resin. Whereas the orientation of fiber 00 has the maximum tensile strength which is 127.2 Mpa in the experiment result and 150.12Mpa in the Digimat simulation result. The test outcomes are drawn and the conclusions were made to compare the result of horsehair/epoxy, glass fiber/epoxy and hybrid composite with software simulation. Further investigation is recommended to test with other animal hairs.