Fracture Toughness of Sugar Palm Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites

The aims of this study is to determine the fracture toughness, and energy release rates of sugar palm fiber reinforced epoxy composite SPFREC. Randomly chopped short sugar palm fiber with a loading of 20 % (by volume) used as reinforcement agents in epoxy composites. The mixing ratio for the epoxy and the hardener was 4: 1. Three types of treatments apply during study to be compared with the untreated one. The fiber were left soaked for a period of 30 days in different treatment medium as seawater, pond water and contaminated water before taken out and washed thoroughly with distilled water. Results show that the fracture toughness, and energy release rates registered its highest values of 1.248 MPam and 1.19 KJ/m2 respectively for the seawater. Also, the tests Results shows improving of mechanical properties of sugar palm fiber-reinforced epoxy. The SEM analysis has conducted to provide the analysis on interface adhesion between the surfaces of fiber with the matrix.