Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre-Thermoset Composites

Over the last decade, polymers reinforced with natural fibres composites have been getting an increasing attention from the academic world and various industries. Natural fibres are prospective reinforcing materials and their usage until now has been more traditional than technical. The attractiv...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mohamed Yusoff, Mohd Zuhri
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
Published: 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/7798/1/FK_2009_61A.pdf
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
id my-upm-ir.7798
record_format uketd_dc
spelling my-upm-ir.77982013-05-27T07:36:28Z Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre-Thermoset Composites 2009 Mohamed Yusoff, Mohd Zuhri Over the last decade, polymers reinforced with natural fibres composites have been getting an increasing attention from the academic world and various industries. Natural fibres are prospective reinforcing materials and their usage until now has been more traditional than technical. The attractive features of natural fibres are their low cost, lightweight, high specific modulus, renewability and biodegradability. Oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) are readily available in large quantities in palm oil mills. The fact is oil palm fibre (OPF) can be obtained directly from natural resource, cheap and also has advantages due to their renewable nature, low cost, and easy availability. This study was aim to determine the tensile and flexural properties of oil palm fibre-thermoset composites. Oil palm fibre/phenol formaldehyde (OPF/PF) composites and oil palm fibre reinforced epoxy (OPF/Epoxy) composites were fabricated to carry out the determination of mechanical properties. The composites were prepared by volume fraction of 40%, 50% and 60% for OPF/PF while for OPF/epoxy were 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%. Composites were cut based on the ASTM D638 for tensile testing and ASTM D790 flexural testing. The testing was conducted on a Universal Testing Machine while the interfacial adhesion between fibre and matrix were observed using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results from tensile and flexural tests of OPF/PF composites showed an increasing trend of tensile and flexural strengths as the volume fraction of fibre was increased. From the scattered values, it is found that the highest tensile and flexural strengths for OPF/PF composites were obtained at 60% volume fraction, in average. The results of tensile and flexural tests for OPF/Epoxy composites showed that by the addition of fibre content, the tensile and flexural strength was decreased compared to pure epoxy resin (0% fibre). It has been notice that to obtain the optimum tensile and flexural properties was found at the volume fraction of 5%. It is also found that the dispersion of fibre and interfacial adhesion between fibre – matrix can affect the mechanical properties of the composites. 2009 Thesis http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/7798/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/7798/1/FK_2009_61A.pdf application/pdf en public masters Universiti Putra Malaysia Faculty : Engineering English
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
collection PSAS Institutional Repository
language English
English
topic


spellingShingle


Mohamed Yusoff, Mohd Zuhri
Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre-Thermoset Composites
description Over the last decade, polymers reinforced with natural fibres composites have been getting an increasing attention from the academic world and various industries. Natural fibres are prospective reinforcing materials and their usage until now has been more traditional than technical. The attractive features of natural fibres are their low cost, lightweight, high specific modulus, renewability and biodegradability. Oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) are readily available in large quantities in palm oil mills. The fact is oil palm fibre (OPF) can be obtained directly from natural resource, cheap and also has advantages due to their renewable nature, low cost, and easy availability. This study was aim to determine the tensile and flexural properties of oil palm fibre-thermoset composites. Oil palm fibre/phenol formaldehyde (OPF/PF) composites and oil palm fibre reinforced epoxy (OPF/Epoxy) composites were fabricated to carry out the determination of mechanical properties. The composites were prepared by volume fraction of 40%, 50% and 60% for OPF/PF while for OPF/epoxy were 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%. Composites were cut based on the ASTM D638 for tensile testing and ASTM D790 flexural testing. The testing was conducted on a Universal Testing Machine while the interfacial adhesion between fibre and matrix were observed using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results from tensile and flexural tests of OPF/PF composites showed an increasing trend of tensile and flexural strengths as the volume fraction of fibre was increased. From the scattered values, it is found that the highest tensile and flexural strengths for OPF/PF composites were obtained at 60% volume fraction, in average. The results of tensile and flexural tests for OPF/Epoxy composites showed that by the addition of fibre content, the tensile and flexural strength was decreased compared to pure epoxy resin (0% fibre). It has been notice that to obtain the optimum tensile and flexural properties was found at the volume fraction of 5%. It is also found that the dispersion of fibre and interfacial adhesion between fibre – matrix can affect the mechanical properties of the composites.
format Thesis
qualification_level Master's degree
author Mohamed Yusoff, Mohd Zuhri
author_facet Mohamed Yusoff, Mohd Zuhri
author_sort Mohamed Yusoff, Mohd Zuhri
title Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre-Thermoset Composites
title_short Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre-Thermoset Composites
title_full Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre-Thermoset Composites
title_fullStr Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre-Thermoset Composites
title_full_unstemmed Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre-Thermoset Composites
title_sort mechanical properties of oil palm fibre-thermoset composites
granting_institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
granting_department Faculty : Engineering
publishDate 2009
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/7798/1/FK_2009_61A.pdf
_version_ 1747810708745093120