Investigating the Impact of Physical and Mechanical Characteristics of Palf/Glass Fiber Reinforced In Epoxy Resin

Abstract

Recent times, the nature fibers deepen its roots in the field of composite materials. Owing to its ecofriendly characteristics, the natural fibers had its upper hand to the synthetic fiber. But, usage of natural fiber alone doesn’t bring desirable characteristics to the fabricated material. Therefore, the amalgamation of synthetic and natural fiber as the reinforcement in the polymer composite brings desirable property to the newly fabricating material. In this paper, we utilized the Pineapple Leaf Fiber (PALF) and glass fiber as the reinforcement in the epoxy resin and fabricated the new material. The paper mainly concentrates to study the physical and mechanical characteristics of the material. The uniform distribution of PALF and glass fiber over the polymer matrix was confirmed with the help of images of Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The PALF and glass fiber of composition of 20 % and 15% of weight ratio shows significant resistance to brittleness and have high tensile strength. Consecutively, the PALF and glass fiber of composition of 25% and 10% of weight ratio yields higher bending strength and shows implacable resistance to compression and impact load.