Thermal conductivity Characterization of Bamboo fiber reinforced in Epoxy Resin

Abstract

Over a past few decades composites, plastics, ceramics have been the dominant engineering material. The areas of applications of composites materials have grown rapidly and have even found new markets. The current challenge is to make the durable in tough conditions to replace other materials and also to make them cost effective .This has resulted in development of many new techniques currently being used in the industry. While the use of composites it is clear choice in many applications but the selection of material will depend on the factor such as working life, lifetime requirement, complexity of product shape produced, saving the term cost. The availability of natural fiber is abundances and also they are very inexpensive when compared to other advanced manmade fibers. The primary advantage of natural fibers are low density, low cost, biodegradability, acceptable specific properties, less wear during extracting as well as manufacturing composites and wide varieties of natural fibers are locally available. The main focus of this investigation is to determine the thermal conductivity of bamboo fiber reinforced in epoxy resin composites. The test samples were prepared as per ASTM standards using simple hand-layup technique at different fiber weight fractions (10%, 20%30%, 40%50%, 60%). Thermal conductivity (K) of the composites material were determined experimentally and is validated by the results obtained by rule of mixture, E-S model and also by finite element modeling