Jute fiber reinforced epoxy composites and comparison with the glass and neat epoxy composites

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to replace the traditional fiber composites with a natural-fiber composite in perception of tribological and mechanical accepts. A systematic study has been carried out to investigate jute fiber properties when incorporated into epoxy matrix. Thermogravimetric analysis has also been carried out for jute and epoxy for thermal property analysis. For a comparison purpose epoxy and glass fiber composites are prepared. The investigation reveals that, due to incorporation of jute into polymer epoxy shows better properties than the resins alone; but the properties are inferior to those of glass reinforced in terms of mechanical. When considering the tribological application, the jute fiber shows superior properties than neat and glass-reinforced epoxy composites. The worn out samples were studied using scanning electron microscope.