Mechanical Characterization Of Coir Fiber Reinforced Composite

Over a long period of the time fiber reinforced composite have being used in a variety of applications. Their high specific strength and modulus are the main contributing factor in their increasing demand in the day to day application. Fibers used as reinforcement in this polymer-based composite may be naturally occurring or man-made. A study has been carried out to make use of naturally occurring coir fiber as reinforcement in an epoxy-based composite. The main objective of this research is to study the effect of fiber orientation and fiber length on the mechanical properties of the coir fiber reinforced composite. Coir fiber composite with fiber orientated as random and aligned is manufactured with fiber length varying in three levels (30 mm, 40 mm & 50 mm). Coir fibers were treated with 5% Sodium Hydroxide solution before adding them to epoxy resin. Composite is manufactured with fiber volume fraction of 25% and epoxy 75% were manufactured using hand lay-up technique. Mechanical properties such as tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength, and hardness were found to improve on account of increase in fiber length. It is observed that with the change in fiber orientation from random to aligned, hardness values reduced whereas tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength improved. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.