Determination of mechanical properties of okra, sisal fibre and polyester based hybrid composite

Abstract

The natural fibre reinforced composites have the advantage of being light weight, renewable, cheap and eco-friendly when compared to the synthetic fibres. So, there is a need to investigate potentiality of natural fibre which can be used in highly demanding situations. An attempt has been made in the present work to explore the possible uses of variety of cultivated and wild grown fibres in nature that aids in the development of new composites for load carrying structures. The present research work has been carried out to make use of okra/sisal natural fibres. The aim of this paper is to describe the experimental development and characterization of new set of hybrid natural fibre composites which is made by reinforcing okra/sisal fibres with polyester resin in matrix by using hand layup method. The natural fibres were extracted by retting and combing process manually. The hybrid composites were prepared using okra/sisal fibres of 30/70, 50/50, 70/30 fibre weight ratios, when subjected to varying weights of fibres (0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, 2) grams. The tensileand impact properties were carried out using hybrid composite specimens.