A Study on Fire Resistance of Abaca/Vinyl-ester Composites

Abstract

Eco-convivial composites with improved properties are essential to present polymer scenario and can be made easily by replacing partially/completely renewable materials either matrix or reinforcement along with few % of additives. In these investigations, Abaca fabric have been used as reinforcement for manufacturing of Vinyl ester composites through VARTM technique and study the effect of alkali surface treatment of abaca fabric and flame retardant additives i.e., ammonium polyphosphate (APP) with halloysite nano-clay (HNT) on mechanical and flame retardant properties. The results concluded that, surface treatment deceased the hydrophilic nature of fabric and enhanced the interfacial bonding with hydrophobic matrix and eventually increased mechanical properties slightly of developed composites. Similarly, the flame retardancy of the composites improved significantly and increases the burning time by varying the wt% of filler concentration.