Evaluation of mechanical properties for banana-carbon fiber reinforced nano-clay epoxy composite using analytical modeling and simulation

Nano-fillers are bringing impeccable development in the area of materials science and natural fibers reinforced composites. In this study, a composite consisting of banana-carbon fiber reinforced epoxy matrix filled with 1%, 3%, and 5% weight percentage of nano-clay particles (NC) and carrying a transverse load is investigated for its mechanical and elastic properties. Nano-clay layer with interphase are arranged in layers called nano-clay platelets. The elastic properties such as longitudinal elastic modulus, transverse elastic modulus, in-plane Poisson's ratio, in-plane and out-of-plane shear modulus for the proposed composite are calculated by using different analytical models namely, Mori-Tanaka, Bridging, Generalized Self-Consistent, and Modified Halpin-Tsai model. The strength and deformation of the proposed composite are analyzed by using the ANSYS APDL application. The proposed composite is modeled using two layers of banana fibers, two layers of carbon fiber, and one layer of nano-clay platelet. The fibers and nano-clay platelet are arranged in a specific sequence of banana fiber at 900, carbon fiber at 00, nano-clay platelet at 900, carbon fiber at 00, and banana fiber at 900. The proposed composite reinforced with 3% nano-clay is showing the least deformation as compared to 1% and 5% reinforcement. It is also observed that the modified Halpin-Tsai model outperforms all the other models as it is yielding the most effective elastic properties for the proposed composite and Mori-Tanaka model is found to be the least effective model for the calculation of elastic features of the proposed composite. Additionally, the hybridization effect for the composite is also calculated to analyze the tensile failure strain characteristics for banana and carbon fibers in the hybrid composite.