Experimental investigation of morphological and mechanical properties of SiC-neem-coir fiber reinforced hybrid composite

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present work is the novel investigation of a hand layup fabricated hybrid epoxy matrix composite with silicon carbide and neem-coir natural fibers as primary and secondary reinforcements respectively. The hybrid composites were fabricated at varying volume fractions of reinforcements to determine the influence of reinforcements composition on the physical performance of the resulting composite. The fabricated hybrid composites were characterized for mechanical behaviour by tensile and hardness tests. The fiber-matrix interfacial layer was examined by microscopy for morphological behaviour, and the composition was examined by energy dispersive X-ray analysis. The analysis revealed that among the three fabricated composite combinations, the hybrid epoxy matrix SiC-neem-coir reinforcement composite exhibited the peak tensile strength of 53 MPa and the Shore D hardness of 78.1. Enhancement in flexural strength was obtained for the hybrid composite with natural fiber volume fractions of 6% and 3% for neem and coir respectively. The morphological analysis revealed that silicon carbide as primary reinforcement was effective in improving mechanical properties of the composite, but with inconsistent property enhancements. The addition of neem-coir as secondary reinforcements in varying compositions exhibited bolstering effects on the mechanical properties of the composite and maintaining consistency of enhancement over various composition samples.