Mechanical and water absorption properties of Calotropis gigantea plant fibers reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

Utilization of natural fiber in polymer matrix composite materials for research purposes and industrial applications has witnessed a steady growth during the recent times. Various research works envisaged the benefits of using natural fibers as reinforcements in place of artificial fibers for the manufacturing of composites and hence the current experimental work is focused in utilizing Calotropis gigantea fiber (CGF) as reinforcement for making the composite material. Since the CGF is available in surplus and due to its least vegetation value it has been chosen as reinforcement in the current work. Compression molding method was used to fabricate the composite laminates and they were subjected to water absorption and mechanical property testing such as flexural, tensile and impact testing. From the results, it is found that the CGF composites can withstand the maximum flexural strength of 87.88 MPa, tensile strength of 62.72 MPa, and impact strength of 10.4 kJ/m2. It was observed from the experimental results that water absorption and mechanical characteristics of the CGF reinforced composites were on par with the other natural fiber reinforced composites which were experimented in past literature studies.