Investigate the effects of different control factors on mechanical characteristics of natural fiber reinforced composite

Abstract

Natural fiber-reinforced materials are replacing synthetic fiber-reinforced composites in the industrial sector. The mechanical properties of a composite material reinforced with natural fibers from corn cob and palmyra fruit are examined in this research. The wt% of the fibers, composite thickness, the ratio and wt% of the matrix materials are the variables considered for this study. Composites are fabricated utilizing the Taguchi L9 orthogonal array approach using a manual lay-up procedure. After conducting mechanical characterization, it is determined through Taguchi analysis that the composite material with a thickness of 12 mm exhibited a maximum impact strength of 4.67 J/cm². By contrast, the composite material of 10 mm in thickness exhibited a Rockwell hardness of 54, a tensile strength of 23.31 MPa, and a flexural strength of 1.45 MPa. The validation of the experimental data reveals that the margin of error for impact strength, Rockwell hardness, tensile, and flexural strength is determined to be 6.1 %, 3.93 %, 4.68 %, and 8.23 %, respectively. In addition, the regression analysis reveals that the minimal deviation of the data is 1.86 %, 0.73 %, 0.29 %, and 1.25 % for impact strength, Rockwell hardness, tensile, and flexural strength, respectively. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicates that the weight percentage (wt%) of fibers, specifically 50.51 % and 41.32 %, has a significant impact on the enhancement of hardness and tensile strength, respectively. In the case of impact strength, it is found that the thickness (53.21 %) of the composites plays a significant role. Due to biodegradability, recyclability, eco-friendly, and economical materials, different types of fancy items, decorative purpose, disposable bags, home textiles and different value-added items can be fabricated from these composite materials.