Investigation on the Mechanical Properties of Banana Trunk Fibre-Reinforced Polymer Composites for Furniture Making Application

Abstract

The banana plant is unproductive after it has produced fruits once in its lifetime and the trunk commonly be disposed. Among the disposing methods used are by herbicide injection and burning using kerosene in which are unfavourable due to bad effects to the environment. Thus, the application of the unused banana trunk could be advantageous in saving the environment through its fibre properties as composite. Three tensile test specimens were prepared with each has different weight of banana fibres - 0, 0.45, and 0.9 g. The results demonstrated that the composite with high amount of fibre promoted superior maximum and break stress values. Also, the properties of the composite are convenient to be applied in furniture making as adequate stress level recorded in the numerical analysis.