EVALUATION OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF BANANA FIBRE REINFORCED POLYESTER COMPOSITE

Abstract

With the increase in the development activities, the utilization of non-renewable and non-biodegradable resources has increased exponentially in today’s World. This has led to the environmental pollution and has attracted the attention of quite a number of researchers. In these past few years, the researchers have been probing to synthesize new category of materials and products that are both eco-friendly and sustainable for usage.

The fibers extracted from the natural sources provide a wide range of advantages when compared to the synthetic reinforcement materials in the composites. Natural fibres are low in cost, low in density, non-toxic in nature, have comparable strength and possess minimum waste disposal problems during the fabrication of composite materials.

The main objective of this experimental study is to fabricate natural fibre based composite materials and to evaluate its mechanical properties. As a result, Banana Fibre Reinforced Polyester Composites is fabricated taking three different fibre weight ratios. Wet layup technique is used to manufacture the composites and the fibres are laid unidirectional i.e. along 90° orientation.

After the fabrication, the mechanical properties such as Tensile strength, Flexural strength, Impact Strength and Hardness are evaluated. It is found out that the mechanical properties are enhanced with increasing fibre weight ratio in the composite and the flexural properties are enhanced by 28%, on increasing the fibre weight ratio by 10%.