Study of fibre to fibre and ply to ply comingling technique for fabrication of natural fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites

Abstract

Composite are made by using a reinforcement and a resin. Natural fibres are low cost, biodegradable and have good mechanical properties. Thermoplastic polymers are cheaper, recyclable and have good mechanical properties. The thermoplastic polymers (as a resin) are not commonly used due to their high viscosities which makes fibres’ impregnation difficult. In this study “fibre to fibre” and “ply to ply” commingling techniques were used for the fabrication of natural fibres reinforced thermoplastic composites. Jute and flax fibres were commingled with polypropylene using two types of structures i.e. woven (2/2 basket weave) and nonwoven. In addition to that fibre to matrix volume percentage was also varied (30% 40% 50% and 60%). Mechanical properties and surface morphology of the developed composites were studied. The results depicted that the woven composites have better mechanical properties than the nonwoven composites which may be because of the regular arrangement of fibres in woven composites. Furthermore, composites reinforced with flax exhibited better mechanical properties than the composites reinforced with jute. In addition to that, better mechanical properties were observed with fibre volume fraction of 30% and 40% which could be due to better impregnation of fibres with matrix.