THE EFFECT OF HYBRIDIZATION ON MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR OF KEVLAR AND NATURAL FIBER REINFORCED COMPOSITE

Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composite is finding application in many fields such as structural elements, roof panels, wind mill blades etc., due to its low cost, high strength to weight ratio and stiffness to weight ratio. In this paper, initially four varieties of FRP reinforced with natural fibers like jute, flax, sisal and hemp have been numerically studied under modal analysis and static structural analysis by using ABAQUS/CAE-6.14 software. Moreover, numerical simulation and experimental analysis were carried out by replacing top and bottom natural fabric layer by Kevlar-29, keeping the same core of natural fibers. The substantial increase of around 54% in natural frequency and 20 % in flexural strength were observed in the hybrid FRP compared to Natural fabric FRP. The panels were fabricated by vacuum bagging technique and the volume fraction of fibers was 38%. Amongst all the varieties of FRP panels under study, the hybrid panel made of kevlar and hemp showed maximum natural frequencies of 27.5 Hz, 139.9 Hz and 358.4 Hz with encouraging damping factor of 1.56, 0.60 and 0.005 at three flexural modes, respectively. Also, it has maximum flexural strength of 244.2 MPa.