Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Rice/Wheat Straw Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites: A Comparative Study

Abstract

AbstractThe novelty of the present work is to choose the best alternative composite material with suitable mechanical and thermal properties which can be preferentially used as building material. To achieve the desired objective, a comparative study of rice and wheat straw fiber reinforced epoxy composite has been made in the present work to recommend the most suitable one from the application point of view. The composite material has been prepared with straw content varying from 5 to 20% by weight percentage employing the hand lay-up technique. The tensile, compressive and thermal properties of the prepared test specimen are obtained experimentally. The experimental results thus obtained reported that the tensile strength of wheat straw fiber reaches a maximum value of 6.18 MPa while reaching 4.18 MPa in case of rice straw fiber. While comparing the results for compressive strength it is found that the rice straw fiber attains a maximum value of 14.25 MPa against 10.78 MPa in case of wheat straw fiber. The thermal conductivity value of both wheat and rice straw fiber reinforced composite decrease with increase in fiber loading.KeywordsCompositesEpoxy resinRice strawWheat strawMechanical propertiesThermal conductivity