Study of mechanical properties of walnut shell powder filled-glass fiber reinforced vinyl ester hybrid composite

Abstract

In this article, an experimental investigation has been performed to examine the mechanical behaviour of walnut shell powder filled-glass fiber reinforced vinyl ester composite. The size of walnut shell varied in the range of 80 micron to 120 micron. Glass fiber was reinforced in mat form to provide primary strength to the composite while walnut shell powder (WNP) was used in view of giving value addition to it. Weightage of glass fiber was kept constant at 10 wt. % while WNP was varied as 0, 10, 15 and 20. Composite was fabricated by conventional hand lay-up method and characterized for mechanical propertied such as tensile strength, flexural strength and impact energy. The obtained results revealed that incorporation of WNP has significant influence on the mechanical properties but at higher weightage of WNP, a slight reduction in the properties were observed except flexural strength which showed linear increase with the addition of WNP.