Investigation of material properties of natural and synthetic fiber hybrid composite material

Abstract

For the last decade, many composites have been used in various applications and industries. Many types of fibre-based composites are present, which comes under two categories such as natural and synthetic fibre-based composites. Now-a-days, most of the natural fibre composite replaces synthetic fibre composite, due to their inexpensiveness, easy to manufacture, eco-friendly, biodegradable, abundance, improved surface finish, low weight, renewable source, etc. Density, mechanical properties, high water absorption and durability of natural fibre composite might be lower compared to the synthetic fibre composite but the moisture absorption of natural fibre can be improved by chemical treatment. The fibre used here are Bamboo, Banana, Jute and E-Glass fibre. For chemical treatment Con. Sodium Hydroxide solution (NaOH) is used. In this paper, hybrid composite is fabricated by hand layup process using natural and synthetic fibre as Sandwich type keeping glass fibre as upper and lower layer which is a safe and gives better surface finish replacing the existing plastics used in aircraft interiors. Thus, determining the mechanical properties of the seven composition of the composite sample by undertaking tensile test, flexural test, impact test, water absorption test and finalizing which of these composition is best for aerospace application. Sample 1 consisting of Bamboo-5%, Banana- 15%, Jute-10%, Glass fibre-10%, Epoxy Resin-60% shows high tensile strength, impact strength, followed by Sample 4 consisting of Bamboo-10%, Banana-10%, Jute-10%, Glass fibre-10%, Epoxy-60% shows high flexural strength.