Flexural Properties of Unidirectional Enset Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composite for Automotive Interior Application

Abstract

Natural fiber-reinforced composites have attracted the attention of the research community mainly because they are turning out to be an alternative solution to the ever depleting petroleum sources and have additional advantages emanating from their low cost, low density, renewability, recyclability and biodegradability over glass fiber. In this regard, Enset plant is a main staple crop in southern and central Ethiopia where the pulp is fermented for food production but its strong fibers are now only used for local rope making or they are discarded. This paper presents the characteristics of Enset fiber under flexural loading conditions. So, a fiber reinforced composite specimen with different standard span length, fiber age, and fiber volume fraction has been considered. The experiment has been designed and analyzed using Optimal Experiment Design and Taguchi array platform on JMP and Minitab software package. After density of the fiber is measured by a Gas Pycnometery, different range of flexural loading and different loading condition (intermittent and one time) using Instron machine has been applied and the result has been analyzed and interpreted accordingly. This work, finally, reports the flexural properties of the fiber to be: Density: 1.4 g/cm 3 ; Flexural strength at maximum load: 121.6Mpa-215.0Mpa, Mean strength at maximum load: 162.4; Mean strength at maximum extension: 96.47MP; Modulus: 8.081Gpa-12.02Gpa, Mean modulus: 10.903MPa. Variation and standard deviation amid the results are minimal because of the bundle fiber sharing the load and reinforcing each other. Keywords: Fiber, Enset, Processing, flexural DOI : 10.7176/CMR/11-8-02 Publication date :October 31 st 2019