Investigation of physical properties of natural fiber reinforced hybrid composites

Abstract

Hybrid composite is a material composed of matrix and two or more reinforcements. Two or more reinforcements in hybrid composite replace the limitation of conventional composites by providing uniform strength to the material. Recently, natural fibers reinforced hybrid composites are gaining increased interest due to the encouraging properties of natural fibers such as high strength to weight ratio, low cost, no harm to environment etc. Many studies dealt with natural fibers based composite reported that the hybrid composites has the potential to replace glass fiber based composites and to reduce the weight of conventional composite. newlineKenaf fiber is extracted from kenaf plant which is used as raw material in textile industries. Kenaf fiber based composites displayed better mechanical properties due to the high strength of kenaf fibers. Indian almond fiber is extracted from the Indian almond fruit. The Indian almond fruit and leaf are used in medicinal applications to treat diabetes and cancer. Few researchers have reported that the Indian almond fiber has good damping properties. newlineIn this investigation, the dynamic mechanical analysis of Indian almond and kenaf fibers reinforced hybrid composite was performed. The variation of dynamic properties such as storage modulus, loss modulus and damping factor were analyzed with change of temperature. The experimental results showed that kenaf fiber composite displayed the higher storage and loss modulus values compared to all other composites due to the presence of more amounts of high strength kenaf fibers. newline