Advanced Materials Manufacturing & Characterization

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1 Advanced Materials Manufacturing & Characterization Vol 6 Issue 2 (216) Advanced Materials Manufacturing & Characterization journal home page: The Effect of Copper and Aluminium Foil on Mechanical Properties of Natural Fiber Reinforced Plastics M. Indra Reddy a, *, Ch. Srinivas a, M. Anil Kumar a, V. Manikanth a a Department of Mechanical Engineering, S R K R Engineering College, Bhimavaram, India A B S T R A C T An experimental study has been carried out to investigate the tensile and flexural characterization of polymer hybrid composites made by reinforcing Jute, Pineapple leaf fiber, Copper foil and Aluminium foil into a epoxy resin. The weight fraction of composites was maintained at 4% fiber, 45% resin and l5% foil and the variation of mechanical properties such as tensile and flexural properties in each case were studied. The tensile strength was maximum in jute and pineapple composite. Further, the Flexural strength of the composite also maximum in jute and pineapple composite. Keywords: Natural fiber, Pineapple leaf fiber (PALF), Jute fiber, Copper foil, Aluminium foil Nomenclature FF Jute and Pineapple leaf fiber FCF Jute fiber, Copper Foil and Pineapple leaf fiber FAF Jute fiber, Aluminium Foil and Pineapple leaf fiber 1. Introduction Natural fibre reinforced polymer composites have raised great attention and interest among scientists and engineers in recent years due to the considerations of developing an environmental friendly material an d partly replacing currently used glass or carbon fibres in fibre reinforced composites. They are high specific strength and modulus materials, low priced, recyclable and easily available in some countries. wear behaviour of the epoxy resin reinforced with jute fibre and silicon carbide (SiC) particles derived from a bio resource like rice husk. It is demonstrated that, if supported by an appropriate magnitude of erosion efficiency, the proposed theoretical model can perform well for epoxy based hybrid composites for normal as well as oblique impacts. The presence of particulate fillers (silicon carbide) in these composites improved their erosion wear resistance and this improvement depended on the weight content of the filler. Erosion characteristics of these composites have been successfully analyzed using Taguchi experimental design. Significant control factors affecting the erosion rate have been identified through successful implementation of this technique. Impact velocity, fibre/filler content, and impingement angle in declining sequence were found to be significant for minimizing the erosion rate of all the composites [1]. The mechanical properties of pure sisal, pure glass and hybrid sisal/glass compression-moulded composites, in which various stacking sequences of fiber mat layers were used. It was shown that hybridization originated a material with general intermediate properties between pure glass and pure sisal. However, the importance of controlling the stacking sequence to enhance properties was evident. For instance, to optimize flexural behaviour, there must be glass fibers mainly on the top and bottom surfaces. Furthermore, depending on the type of loading and stacking sequence, some hybrid composites may show properties very close to those of pure glass [2]. the laminates of urea formaldehyde reinforced with natural fibres obtained from Mexican plants. The strength properties showed a clear dependence between the fibre length and the density and flexural strength of the laminates. The low costs of the fibres as compared to similar materials offer good chances for producing engineering materials on a large scale [3]. The coupling methods to improve the properties of composites. Composites have high level of moisture absorption, poor wet ability, and insufficient adhesion between untreated fibres. To improve the properties of the composites, the natural reinforcing fibres can be modified by coupling methods. The coupling agents have chemical groups which can react with fibre or polymer and thus improve the interfacial adhesion. They used MAH-PP copolymers as coupling agents in jute-propylene 1 Corresponing author: M. Indra Reddy, address:reddy.indra.m@gmail.com Doi: Publications. All rightsreserved.

2 composites. It is found that the flexural strength was increased by 4% and flexural modulus by 9%.SEM investigation showed the improved fibre-matrix adhesion which was due to the chemical bonds between fibre and matrix provided by the coupling agent [4]. Hassan et.al [5] has converted the bagasse into a thermo formable material through esterification of the fibre matrix. The dimensional stability and mechanical properties of the composites prepared from the esterifies fibres were reported in this work. Joseph et.al [6] studied the mechanical properties of short sisal fibre reinforced polypropylene composites. The influence of fibre length, fibre loading and fibre orientation on the mechanical properties of composites has been evaluated. Fibre length of 2mm was found to be optimum for the best balance of properties in the case of melt mixed composites. Joshi et.al [7] compared life cycle environmental performance of natural fibre composites with glass fibre reinforced composites and found that natural composites are environmentally superior in the specific applications studied. Rodriquez et.al [8] tried to use the sugar cane bagasse waste as reinforcement to polymeric resins for fabrication for low cost composites. They reported that composites with homogenous microstructures could be fabricated and mechanical properties similar to wooden agglomerates can be achieved. Paramasivam and Abdul Kalam[9] studied tensile test on dogbone specimens made of sisal fibres with epoxy resin gave encouraging results, suggesting a greater scope for developing these natural fibres for structural and other commercial purpose. The tensile strength of sisal-epoxy composite varied from 25kg/cm2 to 3kg/cm2, nearly half the strength of fibre glass-epoxy composite. Since the density of the sisal-epoxy composite was half that of glass-epoxy composite, the specific strength of sisal composite was nearly the same as that of glass composite. Rana et al.[1]in their work showed that the use of compatibilizer in jute fibres increases its mechanical properties. At 6% by weight of fibre loading, the use of the compatibilizer improved the flexural strength as high as 1%, tensile strength to 12%, and impact strength by 175%. Shibata et.al [11] studied the Young s modulus and flexural modulus of bio based polymer composites made from kenaf, bamboo and biodegradable resin. The flexural modulus increased with increasing fibre content. The experimental flexural modulus in unidirectional fibre composite is in good agreement with the predicted flexural modulus. Natural fibers offer good thermal, dielectric and acoustic insulation properties along with ease in processing technique without wearing of tools [12]. The objective of this research work is to study the effect of copper and aluminium foil on mechanical properties of natural fiber reinforced plastics for the different composites. The composites were tested and characterized to evaluate the tensile and flexural properties. 2. Experimental Procedures 2.1 Materials: General purpose epoxy resin, methyl ethyl ketone peroxide and cobalt naphthenate were purchased from Subh Resins & Fuels Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad. Jute and Pineapple leaf Fibers were obtained from the local sources and shown in figure Fabrication of composites: Polymer Matrix Composites were prepared, using epoxy matrix to assess the reinforcing capacity of Jute, Pineapple leaf Fibers, copper foil and aluminium foil.. These fibers were considered 1:1 by ratio at volume percentage (4%) of a composite. The quantity of accelerator and catalyst added to resin at room temperature for curing was 1.5% by volume of resin each. Hand lay-up method was adopted to fill up the prepared mould with an appropriate amount of epoxy resin mixture and Jute and Pineapple leaf fibers, starting and ending with layers of resin. Fiber deformation and movement should be minimized to yield good quality, fiber reinforced polymer composites. Therefore at the time of curing, a compressive pressure of.5 MPa was applied on the mould and the composite specimens were cured for 24 h. The specimens were also post cured at 7 C for 2 h after removing from the mould. The specimens were prepared with five different percentage volumes of Jute and Pineapple leaf Fibers. 2.3 Tensile test The tensile behaviour of the Jute and Pineapple leaf Fiber Reinforced Polymer composites were prepared as per the standard ASTM D 638M. The composite specimens with 165 mm long 12.7 mm wide and 3 min thick were prepared. The specimens were tested at a cross-head speed of 2.5 mm/min, using a Tensile testing machine supplied by Associated Scientific Engg. Works, New Delhi. 2.4 Flexural test Three point bend tests were performed in accordance with ASTM D 79M to measure flexural properties. The specimens were 125 mm long, 12.7 mm wide and 3 mm thick. In three point bending test, the outer rollers were 64 mm apart and samples were tested at a strain rate of.2 mm/min. A three point bend test was chosen because it requires less material for each test and eliminates the need to accurately determine center point 2

3 Tensile Strength(N/mm2) Stress(N/mm2) deflections with test equipment. The specimens were tested using the same testing machine mentioned above at same crosshead speed. Flexural strength (σ) of the composite was calculated using the following relationship: σ =3PL/2bt2 Where L is the support span: b, the width: t, the thickness; P, the maximum load. 3. Results and Discussion: 3.1 Physical properties The density ofthejute and Pineapple leaf Fiber was found to be 1.46 and 1.52g/cm 3 [13, 14] respectively. 3.2 Tensile and Flexural Properties The variation tensile strength with different combinations of fibers and foils is presented in Figure 1. The tensile strength of the composites in the Jute and Pineapple leaf fiber composite is found to be 11.57MPa. The tensile test report of the composites is shown in Figure Strain(%) Fig. 2 (a) Load - Displacement curve and Stress - Strain curve of FCF composite FCF FAF FF Fig. 1 Variation of tensile strength at 4% volume fiber 3

4 Stress(N/mm2) Flexural Strength(N/mm2) Stress(N/mm2) Strain(%) The flexural behavior with different combinations of fibers and foils is presented in Figure 3. The flexural strength of the composites in the Jute and Pineapple leaf fiber composite is found to be MPa Fig. 2 (b) Load - Displacement curve and Stress - Strain curve of FAF composite. 5 FCF FAF FF Fig. 3 Variation of flexural strength at 4% volume fiber 4. Conclusions Strain (%) Fig. 2 (c) Load - Displacement curve and Stress - Strain curve of FF composite. In this work, Jute, Pineapple leaf fiber and foils reinforced polymer composites were prepared. The tensile and flexural properties of the composites with these fibers were studied. Thus the composites of Jute, Pineapple leaf fiber and foils reinforced composites were found to be light in weight, possessed better mechanical properties. Hence these composite materials can be used for applications such as automobile parts, electronic packages, building construction etc. References 1. Alok Kumar Jha, SisirMantry, AlokSatapathy, and Amar Patnaik, 21, Erosive Wear performance analysis of Jute- Epoxy-Sic Hybrid Composites, Journal of Composite Materials, 44(13),Pp Amico, S. C., Angrizani, C. C. and Drummond, M. L., 21, Influence of the stacking sequence on the mechanical properties of Glass/Sisal hybrid composites, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, 29(2), pp Castano, V.M., Lorenzo Martinez, Hugo Sanchez, and Irene Arita, 1992, Preparation and Characterization of a natural 4

5 fiber-polymer resin composite, Materials Letters, 15, pp Gassan, J. and Bledzki, A. K., 2, Possibilities to Improve the Properties of natural fiber reinforced plastics by fiber modification Jute Polypropylene Composites, Applied Composite Materials, 7, pp Hassan M.L.Rowel,l R.M.,Fadl N.A., Yacoub S.F. and chrisainsen.a.w., 2, Thermo Plasticization of Bagasse. II. Dimensional Stability and Mechanical Properties of Esterified Bagasse composite. Journal of applied polymer science, 76, pp Joseph, P. V., KuruvillaJoesph, and Sabu Thomas, 1999, Effect of processing variables on the mechanical properties of sisal fibre reinforced polypropylene composites, Composite Science and Technology, 59, pp Joshi, S. V., Drzal, L. T., Mohanty, A. K. and Arora, S., 24, Are natural fibre composites environmentally superior to glass fibre reinforced composites, Composites: Part A, 35, pp Monteiro S.N. Rodrikuez R.J.S. De Souza M.V.D Almeida J.R.M., 1998, Sugar Cane Bagasse Waste as Reinforcement in Low Cost Composites, Advanced Performance Material, 5(3), pp Paramasivam, T. and Abdul Kalam, A. P. J., 1974, On the study of Indigenous natural- fibre composites, Fiber Science and Technology, 7, pp Rana, A.K., Mitra, B.C. and Banerjee, A.N., 1999, Short jute fiber-reinforced polypropylene composites: dynamic mechanical study, J. Appl. Polym. Sci.,71, pp Shibata, S., Yong Cao, and Isao Fukumoto., 28, Flexural Modulus of the unidirectional and random composites made from Biodegradable resin and Bamboo and Kenaf fibres, Composites: Part A, 39(4), pp Reddy, M. I., and Srinivasa Reddy, V., 214, Dynamic mechanical analysis of hemp fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites. International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology, 3(9), pp Johnson, S., Kang, L., and Akil, H. M., 216, Mechanical behavior of jute hybrid bio-composites, Composites Part B: Engineering, 91, pp Wambua, P., Ivens, J., and Verpoest, I., 23, Natural fibres: can they replace glass in fibre reinforced plastics?, composites science and technology, 63 (9), pp