Evaluation on mechanical and thermal properties of bananaribbon nendran sisal fiber rope mat reinforced polyester composites and its applications

Abstract

The emerging trend to utilization of biodegradable materials is one of the most significant advances in the field of materials science. In this context, Natural fibers have many superior properties compared to synthetic fibers like low density, cheaper, acceptable specific properties, and minimal health hazards and also they are renewable, eco-friendly and biodegradable. For this reason, natural fiber composite materials can be considered engineering materials and manufactured for various applications. The strength of the natural fiber composites can be enhanced by using various chemical treatments on the fibers, adding fillers with matrix and hybridization with synthetic fibers. But still, there is a lack of strength in these composites compared to other synthetic composites, wherever, the enriched properties of the composites can be achieved by weaving of natural fibers in mat form which makes the composites stronger and comparable to those of synthetic fiber. This research work is focused on enhancing the mechanical and thermal properties of three different varieties of fiber such as banana ribbon, nendran fiber and sisal fiber reinforced polymer composites by means of converting individual fibers into manmade twisted rope and further, rope is converted into rope woven mat using weaving machine. The different combination of composite plates such as Banana Ribbon Random (BRR), Banana Ribbon Rope Random (BRRR), Banana Ribbon Rope Vertical Mat (BRRVM), Nendran Fiber Random (NFR), Nendran Fiber Rope Random (NFRR), Nendran Fiber Rope Vertical Mat (NFRVM), Sisal Fiber Random (SFR), Sisal Fiber Rope Random (SFRR) and Sisal Fiber Rope Vertical Mat (SFRVM) reinforced polyester composites plates were fabricated. The mechanical properties such as tensile, flexural, impact and hardness test were carried out as per ASTM standards for all the combinations of composite plates newline