Preparation, Properties and Machinability Study of Luffa Fiber - Groundnut Shell Reinforced Epoxy Composite

Abstract

The need for eco-friendly materials and non-polluting processing techniques has made natural fibre reinforced polymer composites as potential candidates to replace GFRPS and CFRPS in semi structural applications. Ground nut shell and luffa fibre are easily available in the market at low cost. Polymer composites consisting of 30%, and 40% volume fractions of a hybrid reinforcement containing groundnut shell and luffa fibre in epoxy resin were fabricated by hand lay-up technique with varying process parameters, the variation in the mechanical properties such as tensile, compressive, flexure and impact strength are studied. The optimum mechanical properties were obtained in 40% of fiber volume fraction of treated fiber composites the machinability study was performed by drilling experiments using a drilling machine with drill tool dynamometer. Two input parameters, cutting speed and feed rate and the one output parameter, thrust force, were used for the drilling process. TiAlN coated solid carbide and hss drills were employed in the drilling experiments and a comparative study was made based on the output parameters. Solid carbide resulted in lower thrust force values and feed rate proved to be the most influential parameter on thrust force.

Machining parametric study on the natural fiber reinforced composites: A review

“…The solid carbide (CWC) tool with TiAlN coating produced the minimal thrust force of 138.1 N at a certain tool rotational speed of 2100 r/min and feed rate of 0.35 mm/rev. 101 For machining the bamboo fiber reinforced polyester composite, the feed rate showed the highest contribution of around 40.05%. And the delamination of the composite was found minimal at a feed rate of 18 mm/min, a rotational speed of 500 r/min, and a tool diameter of 4 mm.…”