COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EFFECT OF
NATURAL FIBERS ON MECHANICAL
PROPERTIES OF GFRP COMPOSITES
NIHAL BELLIAPPA PRANAVASU SUBRAHMANYA BHAT
4NI17ME086 4NI17ME098
Under the guidance of
Dr.MV ACHUTHA
Professor
Dept of Mechanical Engineering
National Institute of Engineering
Mysuru-570008
INTRODUCTION
● Composite materials are replaced with traditional material, because of its properties like low
thermal expansion, good tensile as well as compressive properties, high specific strength, etc.
● Even though synthetic fibers have excellent mechanical properties, their cost of processing is
high.
● On the other hand, using natural fibers is cost-effective but their mechanical properties are
compromised. Thus hybrid composites are used as they have the right balance between
mechanical properties and manufacturing cost.
● In this project, the aim is to compare different mechanical properties such as tensile, flexural
and impact properties of different natural fillers on glass fiber reinforced plastic [GFRP]
composites.
OBJECTIVES
● Study the effect of natural fibres(wheat,pineapple,abaca,palm,kenaf,jute and sisal) on
mechanical properties of GFRP(Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastic) composite.
● Compare the tensile,flexural and impact properties of different hybrid composites.
● Analysing the cause for decrease or increase in the mechanical strength of hybrid composite.
LITERATURE SURVEY
● Survey has been conducted on different journals , in which some of them have done natural
fibres as additional reinforcement to glass fibre and polymer is used as matrix.
● There are different types of polymer matrix mainly
1)Thermoplastic: Epoxy resin, Phenolics are some examples.
2)Thermosetting Plastic: Polyethylene, polypropylene are some examples.
In this study epoxy and polyester resin are considered as they were widely used for natural fibre
applications.
● In some journals authors have compared the natural fibres and glass fibres properties like
density,tensile strength etc.
LITERATURE SURVEY
Some natural and synthetic fibers have been selected and their density and tensile strength have been
compared
TABLE 1: MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF NATURAL AND SYNTHETIC FIBERS
FIBERS TENSILE STRENGTH (MPa) DENSITY (g/cm^3)
ABACA 400 1.5
JUTE 410-780 1.48
PINEAPPLE 413-1627 1.44
SISAL 610-720 1.34
E GLASS 2400 2.55
CARBON FIBER 3500 1.75-2
LITERATURE SURVEY
● From the previous slide the density of natural fibers is less than that of synthetic fibers.
● We can select glass fibre and carbon fibre for strength based application as they have high
strength.
● Glass fibre have relatively high mechanical property than natural fibres but its density is more
compared to natural fibres.
● Carbon fibres have high strength and also low density than glass fibre , but considering cost of
the fibre it is generally used in advanced application like aircraft structures and rockets etc
COMPARATIVE STUDY
● In this study, composites which composes of polymer is used as matrix and
reinforcement as glass fibre and natural fibres which together forms a hybrid is taken
● Mechanical properties ( tensile ,flexural and impact) of natural fillers such as wheat,
pineapple, abaca, palm, kenaf, jute and sisal is compared .
COMPARATIVE STUDY
1.TENSILE STRENGTH:
● The tensile strength of various hybrid composite has mentioned in the table given in
the below
link.https://drive.google.com/file/d/14wKWRXJB1Zls9HpPlzOxgpYVwKVSQc6x/vi
ew?usp=sharing
● Sisal hybrid composite has shown very high tensile properties, that is at 255.80 MPa
when 20% sisal fiber and 20%glass fiber reinforced with 60% epoxy.
● The sisal fiber alone produces a very minimum strength of (185.50 MPa).
● The overloading of sisal fiber on composite produces less strength may be due to
weak interfacial bonds increased between fiber and matrix materials.
COMPARATIVE STUDY
Image of a sisal fibre.
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
● In the Abaca fiber composite from the tensile test, resulting strength goes on
decreasing as more abaca fiber is added.
● When 10% abaca has been added after each trial strength was observed to be
144.19MPa at Epoxy(40%)+Glassfiber(50%)+Abaca fiber(10%)) and start to
decrease drastically when 20% abaca added.
Abaca fibre images :
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
● If we observe the pineapple fibre composition ,when 5% of pineapple fiber is added
to just glass fiber epoxy, tensile strength has slightly decreased. But it suddenly
increased when 10% of pineapple fiber was added.
● Increase in percentage of natural fibre in hybrid composite leads to decrease in
strength.
● Wheat straw hybrid shows the lowest tensile property among all, strength is going to
be more only if percentage of glass fibre is more.
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
Pineapple fibre Wheat Straw
COMPARATIVE STUDY
2.FLEXURAL STRENGTH
● The flexural strength of various hybrid composite has mentioned in the table given in
the below link.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14wKWRXJB1Zls9HpPlzOxgpYVwKVSQc6x/view?
usp=sharing
● Abaca fibre has shown high flexural strength than others.
● Optimum strength was obtained at Epoxy(40%)+Glass fiber(30%)+Abaca
fiber(30%) that is 483.03MPa.
● Second composite which have relative flexural strength next to abaca is Sisal
fibre.
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
● When the hybridization is done by increasing sisal percentage in the composite
optimum strength was obtained at 20% sisal +20% Glass+60%epoxy that is
200.80MPa.
● The sisal fiber alone produce a very minimum flexural strength (155.50 MPa) at
40%Sisal +60% epoxy composition.
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
● Least flexural strength was obtained from kenaf fibre at composition of (60%) kenaf
+(40%) E-glass. That is 3.94MPa. Study has been conducted only for (60%) kenaf
+(40%) E-glass ratio.
● Second lowest flexural strength was obtained for Jute fibre hybrid composite results
show that flexural strength of jute composite is lower than that of glass fiber
composites due to the less stiffness of jute fibers in comparison to glass.
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
3 Impact Property :
● The impact strength of various hybrid composite has mentioned in the table given in
the below link.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14wKWRXJB1Zls9HpPlzOxgpYVwKVSQc6x/view?
usp=sharing
● Sisal hybrid shows the highest impact properties ranging from 2320 to 2520
KJ/m^2 . The maximum impact strength is obtained with the composite 20%
sisal +20% Glass +60% epoxy that is 2520 kJ/m^2.
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
● Palm hybrid has the next best impact properties with 8% of palm composite
with 30% e-glass fibre and 70% polyester resin has 960 KJ/m^2.
● Wheat straw hybrid showed low impact property, when Wheat (40%)+Glass
fibre (0%)+epoxy (60%) ratio impact strength was 7.3KJ/m^2,which is very
low when compared to other natural fibres.
● The reason for low impact strength depends on the cellulose content which is
higher in natural fibre. Impact strength also depends upon the matrix
toughness and the orientation of fibres which defends the crack propagation.
COMPARATIVE STUDY
COMPARATIVE STUDY
CONCLUSION
By comparing tensile ,flexural and impact properties of different composition of optimum
strength hybrid composite, the following conclusions are drawn:
● Sisal and Abaca hybrid glassfibre reinforced plastic has shown very good
tensile,flexural and impact properties.
● Abaca fibre hybrid has shown very high tensile properties of 144.19MPa.
● Sisal fibre hybrid has shown high flexural properties of 200.81MPa.
● Again Sisal fibre hybrid has very high impact strength among others of 2520 KJ/m^2.
● Pineapple fibre also showed good tensile and flexural properties which is lesser than
tensile and flexural properties of abaca and sisal fibre.
CONCLUSION
● Natural fibers are bio-degradable and they have a lower discharge rate than the
synthetic fiber.The physical and mechanical properties of these natural fiber polymer
composites can be further improved through the chemical treatment.
● In strength based applications where natural fibres have comparatively less
mechanical properties compared to synthetic fibres, hybridising will yield high
strength and also less weight due to less density of natural fibres.
ADVANTAGES OF NATURAL FIBRE
In general we have to use more natural fibres because:
1)NFRPCs are used to make composites in industrial applications because of its
low cost and high performance.
2) Disposal of NFRPCs is easy when compared to SFRPCs.
3)Natural fiber composites are used in place of glass which are mainly in non
structural applications. For example :Different automotive components such as
doors, bonnets, etc.
4)Production process requires less energy and less utilisation of resources.
DISADVANTAGES
Even though natural fibers are obtained from renewable sources and the polymer
composites based on them are ecologically friendly as compared to the synthetic
fiber reinforced composites, there are also some drawbacks, which are related to
the exploitation of basic/raw fibers in the preparation of the composites.
(1) High moisture uptake is the major drawback of the natural fibers. This
phenomenon weakens the interfacial bonding between the polymer matrix and
fiber and causes deterioration of the mechanical properties.
APPLICATION
● Some examples of natural fibres used in automotive and day to day
application applications :
APPLICATION
APPLICATION
Sisal fiber: In construction industries such as panels,doors, shutting plate, and
roofing sheets; also, manufacturing of paper and pulp this fiber is used in vast
amount
Hemp fiber: This fiber is used in various fields of modern time. Construction
products, textiles, cordage, geotextiles, paper & packaging, furniture, electrical,
manufacture banknotes, and manufacture of pipes are the mostly used sectors of
hemp fiber.
In Formula 1 cars mainly carbon fibres and kevlar fibre reinforced epoxy is used
for all the body panels, and for driver helmets etc.
APPLICATIONS
