Uniaxial tensile response of coconut coir fiber-reinforced polyethylene Composites

Abstract

The roles of Composite materials in a variety of engineering applications have increased due to their enhanced strength and modulus, especially polymer-based composites which is one of the commercially available composites. The uniaxial tensile properties of polyethylene matrix reinforced with coconut coir fibers has been studied and the results from experiments and analytical models are presented. The compositional dependence of tensile strength, stiffness (elastic modulus), modulus of resilience and ductility are explored for different proportions of the constituent materials through experiments and analytical models. The results from experiments showed that the properties measured were greatly affected by the fiber mass fraction with optimized properties obtained at fiber content of 10 wt%.

Keywords

• Coconut coir fibers
• Polyethylene
• Tensile properties
• Composites