MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF EPOXY BASED HYBRID COMPOSITE OF GLASS AND BANANA FIBERS

Abstract

Banana fiber and Glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite and Hybrid fiber reinforced epoxy composite have been prepared for the evaluation of hardness, tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength. Glass fiber is synthetic fiber having more strength than steel and banana fiber is natural fiber. Natural fibers present important advantages such as low density, appropriate stiffness, good mechanical properties, high disposability and renewability. Also, they are recyclable and biodegradable. Banana fibers in combination with glass fibers have proved to be excellent for making cost effective composite materials. The hybridization of FRP (Fiber Reinforced Polymer) at 20% weight fraction of reinforcement results in increase in the tensile strength of HFREC by an amount of 2.8% than that of GFREC and by 67.9% than that of BFREC. The hybridization of FRP at 30% wt. fraction of reinforcement results in increase in the tensile strength of HFREC by an amount of 3.3% than that of GFREC and by 60.7% than that of BFREC. The tensile strength has shown the highest value when a 10% of banana fiber and 20% of glass fiber is used and an interleaving arrangement of glass and banana fiber is followed. The hybridization of FRP at 20% wt. fraction of reinforcement results in increase in the flexural strength of HFREC by an amount of 6.1 % than that of GFREC and by 26.9 % than that of BFREC. The hybridization of FRP at 30% wt. fraction of reinforcement results in increase in the flexural strength of HFREC by an amount of 6.8% than that of GFREC and by 22.5 % than that of BFREC. Highest value of impact strength is observed, when banana fibers and glass fibers are reinforced in a ratio of 1:2 .The impact strength of HFREC is found to be 5% higher than GFREC and 90.8% more than BFREC. Hardness results are similar to the tensile test results.