Evaluation of Physical and Mechanical Properties of Woven Bamboo Glass Polyester Hybrid Composite Material

This work reveals the effect of variation in bamboo fiber percentage and polyester percentage on mechanical properties of woven bamboo glass polyester (WBGP) hybrid composite material. Hybrid composite plates were prepared using hand layup method with varying bamboo fiber percentage (3%, 6%, 9%, 12%, 15% by weight). Three layered reinforced material with top/bottom layers of E-glass fiber in chopped strand matt form and a middle layer of bamboo fiber was prepared using GP-700 resin as matrix material. The prepared plates were tested as per ASTM standard for evaluating its physical and mechanical properties like tensile strength, flexural strength, hardness, and density. Interestingly it was observed that the values of mechanical properties show a positive trend with increasing bamboo fiber percentage with optimum value at 9%. Further increase in fiber content leads to dryness in the composite as the resin is not sufficient to wet all fibers ultimately leading to diminishing mechanical properties. However, density shows a negative trend with an increase in fiber percentage due to the inherent low density of bamboo fiber as compared to polyester resin. The main purpose of this study was to prepare a lightweight low-cost hybrid composite material which can be used for the application like the roof, manhole, chemical containers etc. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Emerging Trends in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering (IMME17).