Studies on mechanical properties of ficus amplissima natural fiber reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

Nowadays, the world is moving towards green living. To ensure a newlinegreen environment, various nations enforce laws and regulations on various newlineindustries, including the manufacturing industry. Polymer-based composite newlinematerial possesses a very crucial place in the manufacturing industry. Due to the newlinemovement towards environmental protection, the manufacturing industries try to newlineidentify new natural-based fibers instead of synthetic fibers like carbon fiber, newlinearamid fiber, glass fiber. Several advantages exist when comparing green composites newlinewith conventional artificial fiber-reinforced composites, such as their low density, newlineenvironment-friendly nature, high specific strength, ease of fabrication, etc. newlineDespite of all these advantages, natural fibers have problems like a high newlinelevel of moisture absorption, hydrophilicity, and high amorphous content. newlineThe hydrophilicity property of the fiber causes weak interfacial bonding with the newlinematrix material, which will impact the properties and behavior of the fabricated newlinecomposite and the applications for which it is used. In order to use plant fiber as newlinereinforcement in a polymer matrix, the amorphic percentage must be reduced in newlinethe fiber. Reduction of the amorphous fraction in the raw plant fiber can be done newlineby diverse surface modification treatments. In this study, Aerial Root fiber, newlinenamely Ficus Amplissima Fiber (ARFAF), was extracted using mechanical newlinecombing and water retting. newlineInitially, the raw ARFAF was subjected to fundamental tests such as newlinediameter measurement, density measurement, chemical composition analysis, newlineChemical functional group identification, crystallographic assessment, thermal newlineinvestigations, surface topography analysis, and single fiber tensile testing newline