This study investigates the mechanical properties of high impact polypropylene composite reinforced with pineapple leaf fibre from the Josapine cultivar as a function of fibre loading. PLF was extracted by using a pineapple leaf fibre machine and then an alkaline treatment was conducted to enhance the properties. Samples of the composite were fabricated with 100 mm fibre length with five different fibre loadings of PLF (30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 wt%). The fabrication was made by a compression moulding technique with unidirectional fibre orientation. Related tests such as tensile, hardness and density tests were conducted to determine the effect of fibre loading. The experimental data showed that the composite with the 60 wt% fibre loading offered the highest value of tensile strength, which was about 309%, and the Young's modulus was about 540% compared to 0 wt% of PLF loading. Meanwhile, the hardness and density of the PLF/PP composites showed very similar values, with small increments from 30 wt% up to 70 wt% PLF loading compared to 0 wt% of PLF loading. The highest values are 65.38 Shore-D and 1.002 g/cm³ respectively. The results also revealed that PLF from the Josapine cultivar with alkaline treatment greatly influences the mechanical properties of PLF/PP composite.
Natural fibers have become an important issue in the development of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite to resolve the current ecological and environmental problems. Among the many types of natural fibers that are available, pineapple leaf fiber (PLF) was selected as the natural fiber used in this study due to comparatively better mechanical properties, ease of availability and low cost. In this work, the effects of pineapple leaf fiber (PLF) loading on the properties of PLF/polypropylene (PP) composites was studied. The sample of composites was fabricated with five different fiber loading of PLF (30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 wt.%). An alkaline treatment was conducted to enhance the PLF properties. The fabrication was made by compression molding technique with random orientation of PLF. From the experimental study, the results revealed that the voids percentage and interfacial bonding between the PLF and PP affected the mechanical properties of the PLF/PP composite. Based on the results of tensile stress, hardness and density, it can be concluded that the PLF/PP composite with the composition ratio of 30/70 wt.% has shown the best mechanical properties compared to other composition ratios (40/60, 50/50, 60/40 and 70/30 wt.%), which are 16.71 MPa, 62.83 Shore-D and 0.93 g/cm³ respectively.
Abstract. Pineapple leaf fiber (PLF) is one of the natural fibers that abundantly can be found in Malaysia, but the usage of the pineapple plant is limited only on their fruit and the other parts to be a waste. In this study, PLF is used as the reinforcement material and starch (SH) used as the matrix or binder. Both materials were combined with several compositions ratio (weight percentage) of PLF/SH composites which are 50PLF/50SH, 60PLF/40SH and 70PLF/30SH. Before undergo the fabrication process, the fiber has gone through an alkaline treatment to increase the strength of the fiber and chopped with an approximate size range from 0.5 mm to 5 mm. Besides that, SH powder is sieved to gain several particulate sizes which are 75 µm, 100 µm and 250 µm. The related tests such as flexural, hardness, density tests and macrostructure analysis have been done to determine their mechanical properties of composite. Based on the results, the sample with composition of 70PL/30SH with 75 µm has shown the highest result for flexural stress which is 14.49 MPa. While, the composite with the same composition of 70PLF/30SH with particulate size SH of 250 µm has shown the highest result in the hardness of 67 Shore-D and density of 1.36 g/cm3 respectively.
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