Processing and characterization of natural fiber reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

Polymeric materials reinforced with synthetic fibres such as glass, carbon, and aramid provide advantages of high stiffness and strength to weight ratio as compared to conventional construction materials, i.e. wood, concrete, and steel. Despite these advantages, the widespread use of synthetic fibre-reinforced polymer composite has a tendency to decline because of their high-initial costs, their use in non-efficient structural forms and most importantly their adverse environmental impact. On the other hand, the increase interest in using natural .bres as reinforcement in plastics to substitute conventional synthetic .bres in some structural applications has become one of the main concerns to study the potential of using natural fibres as reinforcement for polymers. In the light of this, researchers have focused their attention on natural fibre composite (i.e. bio-composites) which are composed of natural or synthetic resins, reinforced with natural fibres. Accordingly, manufacturing of high-performance engineering materials from renewable resources has been pursued by researchers across the world owning to renewable raw materials are environmentally sound and do not cause health problem. The present work includes the processing, characterization of coconut fiber reinforced epoxy composites. . It further outlines a methodology based on Taguchi’s experimental design approach to make a parametric analysis of erosion wear behaviour. The systematic experimentation leads to determination of significant process parameters and material variables that predominantly influence the wear rate.