DEVELOPMENT OF POLYMER - BAMBARANUT SHELL COMPOSITE FOR STRUCTURAL BOARD APPLICATION

This paper is aimed at investigating the use of Bambaranut shell powder as reinforcing material in polymer matrix for structural board production and to investigate its effect on the physical and mechanical properties of the resulting composites. Composites were prepared with 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% by weight of Bambaranut shell of particle size 150 µm. SEM was used to analyze the internal structure of the composites. Analysis of variance was employed to investigate the influence of the addition of Bambaranut shell particle on both the mechanical and physical properties of the samples. The properties measured range as follows: water absorption ( 0.65 to 1.95 %); density (0.1044 to 0.1129 g/〖cm〗^3 ); ultimate tensile strength (20.90 to 11.76 MPa); tensile modulus (102.55 to 161.41 MPa), flexural modulus (3818.53 to 2283.70 MPa) and flexural strength (29.96 to 53.09 MPa). Results show that as percentage of Bambaranut shell particle increased from 10% to 50% there was a decrease in tensile, compressive, impact Strength and flexural modulus. Also, increase in weight percentage of Bambaranut shell particles lowered the density and raised the hardness, and water absorption of the composites. The mechanical properties showed that the composites produced can be used for structural application.