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Due to their low density, natural fibers have increasingly found application in the development of systems such as wind turbine blades, airplane wing spar where flexural strength is a strong criterion for material selection. Although different researchers have studied the mechanical properties of such natural fiber composites, none has focused on the optimization of the flexural strength of pineapple leaf fiber (PALF)/glass fiber (GF) reinforced epoxy hybrid composite. This study applied the Taguchi and general regression analysis method in the optimization and modeling of the flexural strength of the P x G y E z composite. Flexural strength of 144.5 MPa at an optimum development parameter of PALF at 20% volume content, GF at 20% volume content, and fiber length of 25 mm. Analysis of variance and regression analysis was also employed to describe and model the flexural behavior of the developed composite. The PALF fiber showed to have a higher contribution to the flexural strength of the material. The equation developed to model the flexural behavior of the material showed a good correlation between the simulated value and the experimental values of the flexural strength at different combinations of manufacturing parameters.

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Aluminium matrix composites, which are a subclass of metal matrix composites, have characteristics including low density, high stiffness and strength, better wear resistance, controlled thermal expansion, greater fatigue resistance, and improved stability at high temperatures. The scientific and industrial communities are interested in these composites because they may be used to manufacture a broad variety of components for cutting-edge applications. This has study observed how the stirring speed, processing temperature, and stirring duration of the stir casting process affected the percentage elongation of Al-Pumice (PP)-Carbonized Coal Particles (CCP) hybrid composites. It also looked at the optimal weight of these natural ceramic reinforcements using the Taguchi optimization technique. While optimizing the percentage elongation property, the hard compound such as silica, iron oxide, and alumina, were discovered during the characterisation of the reinforcement, showing that PP and CCP can be used as reinforcement in metal matrix composite. The percentage of elongation of the hybrid composite was shown to be most affected by the PP, followed by processing temperature, stirring speed, CCP, and stirring time, using stir casting process parameter optimization. It was observed at 2.5 wt% of pumice particles, 2.5 wt% of carbonated coal particles, 700 °C processing temperature, 200 rpm stirring speed, and 5 min stirring time, the optimum percentage of elongation was discovered to be 5.6%, which is 25.43% lower than the percentage elongation of Al-alloy without reinforcing. The regression study developed a predictive mathematical model for the percentage elongation (PE) as a function of the stir casting process parameters and offered a high degree of prediction, with R-Square, R-Square (adj), and R-Square (pred) values of 91.60%, 87.41%, and 79.32% respectively.

A composite of periwinkle shell powder, palm kernel shell powder, phenolic resin and other additives was developed in a form of a pad. Specimen composite samples were produced by compression at a temperature of 140 ͦ C and mixture design using Design Expert software was used to analyse and optimise the samples. Mathematical models of the compressive stength, hardness and density were developed and statistically validated. Comparison of the models with experimental results showed that the compressive strength suited best with the cubic model, the hardness fitted with quadratic while the density agreed with all the models but suited best with cubic model. Optimized formulation with an objective of maximization compressive strength and hardness and minimization of the density was determined at 10. 02, 10.78, 59.20 and 20 % of periwinkle shell powder (filler), palm kernel shell powder (filler), phenolic resin (matrix) and additives respectively.