Thermal behaviour of hybrid composites reinforced with natural fibers and kevlar

Abstract

There is a wide scope to develop suitable hybrid combination for making Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) to utilize the properties of both natural and synthetic fibers. Economic and environmental reasons justify the use of natural fiber in place of synthetic fiber composite. Thermal stability is one of the important properties for the FRP panel in the applications such as structural panels/roof panels, cold storage and air conditioned ducts of building. The aim of this paper is to investigate thermal properties of hybrid FRP made of Jute, Flax, Sisal and Hemp in combination with kevlar-29. Composite wall conductivity measurement, DSC/TGA technique are used to study thermal conductivity, thermal stability, change in specific heat capacity, thermal degradation. All the panels showed lower thermal conductivity of less than 1 W/m0C; however the flax and hemp panels had lowest thermal conductivity of around 0.45 W/m0C. DSC thermographs indicated broad exotherm and major changes in specific heat capacity at 2000C for all panels. In addition, TGA technique showed main weight loss around 30%-51% of panels around 2100C. Thus the thermal properties of all panels were stable till 2000 C. Thermogravimetric analysis of F-FRP shows thermal stability at lower range of temperature while in H-FRP thermal degradation occurs in two steps around 2600C and 4100C with the wt. loss of 53.72% and 26.79% respectively.