The Effect of Alkaline Treatment on Mechanical Performance of Natural Fibers-reinforced Plaster: Optimization Using RSM

Abstract

In the last decades, eco-friendly materials are playing an interesting role. Particularly, many studies deal with the use of natural fibers as a replacement to synthetic fibers in the plaster matrix. This study has examined the flexural properties of treated natural sisal, flax and jute fibers with different concentrations of NaOH (1.5%, 2% and 4%) and fiber length (5, 10 and 20 mm) reinforced plaster mortars. In this study, the effect of experimental parameters was determined by using analysis of variance ANOVA test. In addition, the response surface methodology (RSM) and desirability function (DF) are also used to optimize the output responses with maximizing the flexural properties. Finally, the experimental results are in good agreement with those obtained statistically.