Mechanical Characteristics Study of Chemically Modified Kenaf Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites

Abstract

An experimental investigation was conducted to identify the optimum fiber content and the effect of fiber alkaline treatment on kenaf fiber reinforced epoxy composites and reported in this article. The entire research work was carried out in two phases. In first phase, kenaf fiber reinforced epoxy composites with fiber weight fractions 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% (on the total weight of composites) of raw untreated fibers were fabricated using hand layup followed by compression molding to identify the optimum fiber content. The prepared specimens were tested for tensile, flexural and impact properties as per corresponding ASTM standards. In the second phase the optimal fiber weight fraction was chosen to identify the effect of chemical treatment of kenaf fiber mats with NaOH and KOH solutions on mechanical properties. Based on the test results the optimum fiber content was identified as 40% with 45.98 MPa, 40.50 MPa, and 13.26 kJ/m2 as tensile, flexural and impact strength respectively; and 6% NaOH treatment recorded highest mechanical properties of composite such as 58.34 MPa in tensile, 55.34 MPa in flexural and 16.69 kJ/m2 in impact strengths respectively. Also 6% NaOH treatment shown 26.88%, 37.28%, and 25.87% improvement on tensile, flexural, and impact strengths respectively.

Keywords

• kenaf fiber
• epoxy resin
• naoh treatment
• koh treatment
• mechanical properties