Influence of Fiber content and screw speed on the Mechanical characterization of Jute fiber reinforced Polypropylene composite using Taguchi Method

Abstract

Utilizations of natural fiber-reinforced composites are increasing day by day due to many environmental advantages and replacement of petroleum-based products. Now a day’s researchers also focused on the replacement of thermoplastics in place of thermoset plastics due to many of the advantages. Out of many potentialities, low-cost productions with lower cycle time and high reparability are important parameters. This paper focused on the mechanical characterization of chemically treated jute fiber reinforced thermoplastic polypropylene (PP) composite processed using a twin-screw extruder. Jute fibers were chopped into smaller lengths and treated 4% concentrated Sodium hydroxide solution for 2 hours with the stirring speed of 50 rpm. These fibers were mixed with thermoplastic matrix and prepared composites using twin screw extruder by varying jute fiber mass faction 10, 20 and 30% and screw speed 100, 200 and 300 rpm. The influences of mechanical properties like tensile, flexural, and impacts (Both notched and unnotched) are discussed for varying screw speeds of the extruder and percentages of the jute fiber. Further, water absorption was studied for various temperatures to understand the influence of fiber adding in polypropylene. In polymers head deflection strength were very important, so further heat deflection temperature were studied. The results show mechanical properties varies significantly by varying screw speed and mass percentages