INVESTIGATION OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF NATURAL FIBER COMPOSITE WITH & WITHOUT FIBER SURFACE TREATMENTS

Natural fiber composites are used for various applications in automobile, Industrial and domestic fields due to their high flexibility and tensile strength. Many works have been carried out to enhance the mechanical properties of composites. In this paper, the effect of fiber surface treatments on mechanical properties of different natural fiber composites is investigated. In this work, three composites with jute 20% fiber, with banana 10% fiber and hybrid fiber with jute 15% and banana 15% were fabricated and mechanical tests were carried out. Then the fibers were treated with 3% of potassium permanganate to improve the bonding between fiber and matrix and polyester was used as resin along with 3% cobalt naphthenate for curing and 5% methyl ethyl ketone peroxide. The tensile test, flexural and impact tests were conducted on those surface treated composites. The test results comparing with and without surface treated composites showed that there was good improvement in the flexural strength and tensile test when the fibers were treated.