Investigation on the Tensile Strength of Treated and Untreated Woven Sugar Palm Fibre Reinforced Composites

Abstract

Abstract. Natural fibres offer environmental benefits such as biodegradable and can be obtained from renewable resources. However, there is lack of investigations done to characterize and compare different types and orientation done on the natural fibres. This paper determines the tensile strength of sugar palm fibres under various treatment processes. The composites were fabricated using woven sugar-palm fibre treated with alkali and acid and used epoxy resin as the matrices for the composite. The tensile test was done to determine the tensile strength of the composite and the surface morphological analysis was done using SEM. The results demonstrated that the composite with the alkali treated fibres produced higher tensile strength compared to untreated and acid treated fibres. With these properties, it shows that treated woven sugar-palm fibre composite can withstand high stress load during operation compared to untreated fibres reinforced composites.

Effect of Fibre Volume Fraction and Sodium Hydroxide Treatment on Mechanical Properties of Palm Fibre/Unsaturated Polyester Composite

“…This indicates that treatment with 3% NaOH concentration for 2 hours has not been able to remove the outer layer of the palm fibre. This layer does not have a strong bond with the second layer consisting of lignin and cellulose [20]. Hemicellulose is highly hydrophilic, while the polyester matrix is hydrophobic, so its compatibility is poor [18].…”