Study of Effect of Surface Treatment on Mechanical Properties of Natural Fiber Reinforced Composites

Abstract

The growing environmental concerns, global warming, waste management issues, dwindling fossil resources, and rising oil prices have resulted in increase in research for newermaterials that are friendly to our health and environment. Green products are being increasingly promoted for sustainable development.The present research is an attempt to develop and study the mechanical properties of the natural fiber reinforced polymer based composites which are partially biodegradable.In this study different natural fibers like jute, banana and sisal have beenused as reinforcement and epoxy as matrix to make the natural fiber reinforced polymer unidirectional composite with the help of hand layup and compression molding.Mechanical properties like tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength for treated and non treated natural fiber reinforced polymerunidirectional composites have been investigated and compared.It has been found that tensile strength of the composites has improved due to incorporation of natural fibers topolymers.Further a considerable increase in tensile and flexural strength has been observed with the use of surface treatment method;howeverimpact strength has been tremendouslydecreased with the use of surface treatment. It has also been found that the jute reinforced polymer composite shows the highest tensile strength.