Mechanical property evaluation of woven jute–coir fiber based polymer composites

Abstract

In this twenty-first century, the interest in using natural fibers as reinforcement in polymer composite material has increased significantly. These composite materials are replacing the traditional materials and reducing overall costs at great extent. Now this natural fiber based composite manufacturing has been a wide area of research and it is the most preferred choice for its superior properties like low density, stiffness, light weight and possesses better mechanical properties. In this work, an investigation has been carried out on jute and coir fiber reinforced (fabricating by hand lay-up technique) hybrid polymer composites. The effect of fiber orientation effect according to two jute fiber direction (0°/90° and 45°/45°) has also been investigated. The mechanical properties like tensile, flexural and impact properties of these composite materials has been studied and analyzed using experimental and numerical analysis (In Autodesk Simulation Mechanical). Fractured surfaces were comprehensively examined with scanning electron microscope to determine the microscopic fracture mode and to characterize the microscopic mechanism governing fracture. The maximum tensile strength (62 MPa), flexural strength (89.12 MPa) and impact strength (190.65 J/m2) is obtained from jute 45°/45°–coir 0°/90° composite. The investigation revealed that fiber orientation significantly affect the mechanical properties of these composites. The predicted results based on the FEM analysis were found to be in reasonable agreement with experimental observations.