PREDICTION OF TENSILE PROPERTIES OF GLASS/JUTE HYBRID INJECTION MOLDINGS

This study dealt with the effect of hybridization of jute fiber and glass fiber on the mechanical properties of fiber reinforced thermoplastics injection moldings. In the glass/jute hybrid materials the weight fraction of glass fiber was fixed at 10wt% and that of jute fiber was varied from 5wt% to 30wt%. Dumbbell-shaped specimens were prepared by injection molding, and the static tensile tests were performed with acoustic emission (AE) monitoring. AE monitoring was conducted to understand the fracture behaviors of glass/jute hybrid materials. By adding the glass fiber to jute fiber reinforced plastics the tensile strength was improved. However, too much content of jute fiber could not achieve the improvement of strength because the uniform distribution of glass fiber was restricted by too much bulky jute fiber. After tensile test the fiber distribution on the fracture surface was observed. Based on the fiber distribution of jute fiber and glass fiber the strength prediction was attempted by introducing the rule of mixture.