Natural fibers are used as reinforcing materials for more than 2000 years. The need for natural fibers has been emerged due to its weight saving, cost effective, and environmentally superior alternatives to synthetic fibers in composites. The interest in natural fiber reinforced polymer composites has been increased rapidly, due to high performance in mechanical properties, significant processing advantages, and it also provides a solution to environmental pollution. The main objective of this paper is to review and discuss the natural fibers like banana, aloe vera, kenaf, and sisal fibers and their extraction processes.
The go-green concept results in multipoint focus towards materials made from nature; easily decomposable and recyclable polymeric materials and their composites along with natural fibres ignited the manufacturing sectors to go for higher altitudes in engineering industries. This is due to the health hazard and environmental problems faced in manufacturing and disposal of synthetic fibres. This study was undertaken to analyse the suitability of new natural fibre as an alternative reinforcement for composite materials. In this paper, tensile, flexural and impact test is made for the woven alovera and kenaf (AK), sisal and kenaf (SK), alovera, sisal and kenaf fibre hybrid epoxy composites (ASK). The composite laminates are made through a hand-layup process. The surface analysis is studied through scanning electron microscopy. From the investigation the SK hybrid composite shows good tensile property, AK hybrid composite shows better flexural property and the best impact strength is observed for ASK hybrid composite. The natural fibres slowly replace the synthetic fibres from its environmental impact, marching towards a revolution in engineering materials.
Natural fibres as reinforcement in polymer composite for making low-cost materials are growing day by day. Researcher's main attention is to apply appropriate technology to utilize these natural fibres as effectively and economically as possible to produce good quality fibre-reinforced polymer composites for various engineering applications. In this research, the experiments of tensile, flexural and impact tests were carried out for woven aloevera and sisal fibre hybrid-reinforced epoxy composites. The hand layup method of fabrication was employed in preparing the composites. The surface morphology of the composites was examined through scanning electron microscope. Due to the low-density and high-specific properties of sisal fibre composites, it offer cost savings when compared with synthetic fibres. Hence it has very good implications in the automotive and transportation industry.
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