Mechanical properties of woven ramie fiber-reinforced epoxy composite

Abstract

Ramie fiber is a kind of natural fiber that has the potential to be used as reinforcement in fiber-reinforced polymer composites due to its high specific strength, biodegradability, and availability in Indonesia. Furthermore, the processing of ramie fiber is more environmentally friendly than glass fiber, therefore a lot of research today is focusing on the use of ramie fiber in the fiber-reinforced polymer as a replacement for glass fiber in several applications, such as automotive, aerospace, and structural. This research aims to investigate the mechanical properties of woven ramie fiber-reinforced epoxy composite. The woven ramie fiber was soaked in 17.5% of sodium hydroxide solution with an immersion time of 0, 1, and 3 days. The epoxy resin was prepared by mixing bisphenol A-epichlorohydrin, polyamine amide, and solvent with different solvent concentrations (0, 25, 50 bisphenol-A wt%). The ramie fiber/epoxy composites were prepared by using the wet hand layup method. The mechanical properties of the composite were measured by using the tensile test according to ASTM D 3039. The volume fraction of the constituents was determined according to ASTM D 3171. The highest tensile strength and modulus of the composite obtained in this research were 47.78 MPa and 3480.65 MPa respectively. From the test results, it was found that the alkali treatment on ramie fiber improves the fiber-matrix interface properties. Furthermore, the fiber volume fraction of the composite increases along with the increase in the amount of solvent. However, the specific strength of ramie/epoxy composites obtained in this research still falls below the specific strength of glass/epoxy composites, therefore still requiring further development.