The Effect of Grain Size of Reinforcing Material (Corn Cob) on Some Mechanical Properties of the Composite Material.

Abstract

Corn cob (CC) is an agricultural waste that can be recycled and used to reinforce unsaturated polyester resin, which can be utilized to produce low-cost structural sections, as well as reduce the risk resulting from the disposing of these wastes by traditional methods, such as landfilling or burning. The purpose of this research is to study the grain size effect of the reinforcing material particles on the mechanical properties of the composite material represented by (hardness, impact resistance, and compressive strength). The experimental work is carried out by preparing a polymeric mixture of unsaturated polyester resin (UPE) reinforced by corn cob particles using two different grain sizes of (53) µm and (710) µm with different volumetric fractions of (0, 5, 10, 20, and 30)%. The manual molding method was used in preparing the molds as follows: The first group consists of a polymeric mixture reinforced with corn cobs with a granular size of (53) µm using the same volumetric ratios mentioned above, while the second group consists of a polymeric mixture reinforced with corn cobs with a granular size of (710) µm using the same volumetric fractions of the first group. The results suggested that the reinforcement of the matrix by these particles led to improving the mechanical properties of the composite material by increasing the reinforcement ratios.

Keywords

• corn cob
• unsaturated polyester
• hardness
• impact strength
• compressive strength