In this study, the Malaysian oil palm fiber (OPF) was extracted from empty fruit bunch (EFB) and used as a reinforcement of polymer composite materials. 10 wt.% and 25 wt.% of OPF were incorporated with polypropylene (PP) and maleated polypropylene (MAPP) to produce injection-molded composite material. For comparison purpose, virgin PP and polymer composites reinforced with wood fiber (WPC) were also fabricated as benchmark samples. From the tensile test result of 25 wt.% of fiber loading, it produced higher tensile properties of the composites. Moreover, the obtained OPF/PP composites showed comparable properties with the WPC material. The second objective of this study is to investigate the effect of fiber sizes on tensile and impact properties of both WPC and OPF/PP composite. The wood fiber and OPF were mechanically classified into several size ranges by using different mesh sieves and proceeded with the kneading and injection molding. The tensile and impact tests were carried out for each type of sample in order to verify the influence of fiber size on the tensile and impact resistance behavior of the WPC and OPF/PP composites.
The effect of the number of layers of woven silk fibre on the interlaminar fracture toughness of silk/polyester composites which is a measure of the resistance of the material to delamination crack propagation has been studied. The multi-layer woven silk fibre/polyester composites were produced by compression moulding technique with increasing layers of silk of between 8 and 14 layers in thermoset polyester. The composite panels have been tested for mode I interlaminar fracture using double cantilever beam specimens (DCB) testing method. It was found that the interlaminar fracture toughness, G IC of the composite increases as the number of silk fibre layers increases. Stable crack propagation is observed during the tests and the crack propagation areas showed all the fibres were bare with no matrix covering them as were seen at 100x and 500x magnification using SEM. Failure occurred at the fibrematrix interface with no fibre bridging observed between the two fracture surfaces. The smooth clean surface of the silk fibres is the result of poor interfacial debonding and the increases in interlaminar fracture toughness is also due to improve strength of the composites panel.
KEY WORDSInterlaminar fracture toughness, composite materials, silk fibre, polyester and scanning electron microscopy.
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