An investigation of tensile and static puncture characteristics of the needle punched non woven fabrics produced from sisal and polypropylene fibres

Abstract

Generally, the non-woven fabrics are used in many applications in comparison to woven and knitted structures. Also, many exciting developments in the production of non-woven fabrics have occurred which have led to higher production. Thus the factors that have led to their increased consumption were high efficiency, lower cost and disposability. There has been a resurgence of the use of natural fibres over the last few years, as researchers have developed innovative products and their various applications. Also, the usage of natural fibres will replace the most expensive synthetic fibres and will provide clean environment. This thesis is concerned with the development of needle punched non-woven from polypropylene and sisal fibres, which were blended in three different blend proportions, namely, 20%sisal/80%polypropylene, 80%sisal/20%polypropylene and 50%sisal/50% polypropylene. By varying the machine parameters such as areal density, needle penetration and strokes per minute, a spectrum of needle punched nonwoven fabrics was produced. Sisal fibres both in untreated and treated with caustic soda of two different concentrations 5% and 10% respectively and two different duration of treatment namely 1 hour and 10minutes were produced. They were studied for tensile strength and elongation as a function of gauge lengths and strain rates. They were tested at gauge lengths ranging from 10mm to 100mm keeping the strain rate constant at 100mm/min. Also, the strain rates used were 10mm/min, 50mm/min, 150mm/min, 250mm/min and 500mm/min respectively keeping the gauge length constant at 50mm. Weibull distribution was used to quantify the strength and elongation data of both untreated and treated sisal fibres newline