The morphological, physicochemical, mechanical and thermal properties of Veldt-grape stem fibre and wild date palm leaf stalk fibre are described in this work, which are seldom studied before. The botanical name of Veldt-grape stem fibre and wild date palm leaf stalk fibre are known as Cissus quadrangularis and Phoenix reclinata, respectively. The morphological analysis of vegetable fibres showed the presence of cracks, microvoids and impurities on the surfaces of Veldt-grape stem fibre and wild date palm leaf stalk fibre. Veldt-grape stem fibre possessed the lowest diameter and density of approximately 0.2668 mm and 1.2128 g/cm 3 , respectively, compared to wild date palm leaf stalk fibre. An X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared analysis of Veldt-grape stem fibre and wild date palm leaf stalk fibre exhibited the presence of cellulose I b with a crystallinity index of 30.9% and 38.8%, respectively. Wild date palm leaf stalk fibre contained high surface roughness in the range of 0.904 mm than Veldt-grape stem fibre (0.611 mm). Tensile tests displayed that wild date palm leaf stalk fibre has highest tensile strength of around 66 MPa, and Veldt-grape stem fibre has highest strain to failure of around 6% in comparison with other fibre. The thermogravimetric analysis indicates that thermal stability of Veldtgrape stem fibre and wild date palm leaf stalk fibre is better up to 230 C and 250 C, respectively, which are well within the polymerisation process temperature.
AbstractThe present study describes the preparation of aligned unidirectional bagasse fiber-reinforced vinyl ester (BFRVE) composites and their mechanical properties such as tensile, flexural, shear and impact strength. Composites were prepared by a hand lay-up technique developed in our laboratory with the help of a hot press. Mechanical properties were obtained for different fiber contents by varying the number of layers. The obtained tensile property values were compared with the theoretical results. The results show that the tensile strength increased linearly up to 44 wt% and then dropped. However, the tensile modulus increased linearly from 17 wt% to 60 wt%. In the case of flexural properties, the flexural strength increased up to 53 wt% and started to decrease. However, the flexural modulus also increased linearly up to 60 wt%. The impact strength values were higher than the matrix materials for all the specimens. The short beam shear strength values were also increased up to 53 wt% and then dropped. The modified Bowyer and Bader (MBB) model followed by the Hirsch model shows a very good agreement with experimental results in both tensile strength and modulus.
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