Investigation of chemically treated longitudinally oriented snake grass fiber-reinforced isophthallic polyester composites

Abstract

Snake grass fibers are subjected to various chemical surface modifications such as alkali, benzoyl peroxide, benzoyl chloride, potassium permanganate and stearic acid. These fibers are utilized to fabricate the longitudinal oriented fiber-reinforced composites at 40% weight fraction of fiber. The mechanical properties of treated fiber composites are found to be higher than those of raw ones. Potassium permanganate treated fiber composites has optimum mechanical properties than other chemicals treated snake grass fibers composites. The scanning electron microscopic images of the tensile and impact fractured composites containing treated and untreated fibers have been examined. The fiber pull-out from the specimen has been found low for the treated fibers compared to untreated fiber composites. The kinetics of water absorption of the composites studied at various time intervals and temperature reveals that the treated fiber-reinforced composites has less water uptake compared to untreated one.