Investigation on effects of fiber loading of mechanical properties of banana/sisal hybrid composite

Abstract

Natural fiber reinforced composites (NFRPCs) are picking up favour over man-made fiber inferable from their lower cost and ecological amicable attributes, as they exist plentifully and are sustainable. The ever-evolving ecological, biological, and prudent concerns lead to expanded acknowledgment of natural fiber in each territory of conventional synthetic material application. This is due to great fatigue as well as corrosion resistance, comparable strength, low cost, low density, abundantly available, nontoxicity and biodegradability and etc. of natural fibers. In the present study, the optimization of most commonly used natural fiber reinforced composites that is Banana and Sisal fiber hybrid composite on the basis of fiber loading and fractional distribution of banana and sisal fiber has been discussed. For Finite Element Analysis, the CAD model of specimens with different fiber loading ranging from 20 to 50 percent as well as with different fractional distribution of banana and sisal fiber were prepared as per the ASTM standards using CREO 5.0 modelling software. The specimens were loaded in order to get the failure in the specimen with the help of CAE software named as ANSYS 16.0. The trend in values of load are in very close resemblance to that obtained by Idicula et al. which provides experimental validation to the results of this finite element study. It was concluded that with increase in total fiber volume percentage the flexural and the tensile strength of the composite also increases. Since, the strength of banana fiber is significantly higher than that of sisal fiber that hence higher degrees of strength were observed with increase in concentration of banana fiber.