Study of mechanical properties of roselle fiber reinforced vinyl ester biocomposite based on the length and content of fiber

Abstract

Mechanical properties of Roselle fiber reinforced vinyl ester biocomposite were studied based on the fiber content and length in the present communication. Usually, natural fiber reinforced polymer composites depend on some aspects such as fiber content, fiber length and orienta-tion, the fiber-matrix adhesion. Composite plates were pre-pared by a simple hand lay-up technique for two different fiber lengths (3 and 13 mm) and five different fiber content (10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 wt%). Composite specimens were tested according to ASTM and ISO standards and their re-sults were recorded. Experimental results showed that me-chanical properties such as tensile, flexural and impact, increases with increase of fiber content up to 40 wt% after which it is decreases at both the fiber length. However, modulus values were increased linearly with fiber content of 10 to 50 wt%. Composites with the fiber length of 13 mm show the high level of mechanical properties compared to composites with the fiber length of 3 mm at all combina-tions of fiber contents. It is observed that the optimal fiber content is 40 wt%, which can be used to obtain the maxi-mum property level in the Roselle fiber reinforced vinyl ester composites.