Material Selection of a Natural Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites using an Analytical Approach

Abstract

Material selection has become a critical part of design for engineers, due to availability of diverse choice of materials that have similar properties and meet the product design specification. Implementation of statistical analysis alone makes it difficult to identify the ideal composition of the final composite. An integrated approach between statistical model and micromechanical model is desired. In this paper, resultant natural fibre and polymer matrix from previous study is used to estimate the mechanical properties such as density, Young's modulus and tensile strength. Four levels of fibre loading are used to compare the optimum natural fibre reinforced polymer composite (NFRPC). The result from this analytical approach revealed that kenaf/polystyrene (PS) with 40% fibre loading is the ideal composite in automotive component application. It was found that the ideal composite score is 1.156 g/cm 3 , 24.2 GPa and 413.4 MPa for density, Young's modulus and tensile strength, respectively. A suggestion to increase the properties on Young's modulus are also presented. This work proves that the statistical model is well incorporated with the analytical approach to choose the correct composite to use in automotive application.

Investigation of Single Fibre Tensile Properties of the Pineapple Leaf (PALF)

“…As for the previous research, such as S. Jose [21] and M. Asim [16], their tensile strength was 413 -1627 MPa and 170 MPa, respectively, higher than this research 141.093 MPa. Their average Young's Modulus were 34.5 -85.2 MPa and 62.1 MPa, which are lower than this output, 89.073 MPa.…”

“…Due to their advantages such as high elasticity, high durability, soft, and can sustain the heavy load, synthetic fibres are among the main components in composite industries [11]. Natural fibres such as cotton [12], sisal [3,13], jute [12,14], pineapple leaf fibre (PALF) [15,16] and kenaf [17] are considered the primary natural fibre that is being used in the world. The hybridisation of two different natural fibre material may improve the material properties.…”

In situ monitoring of moisture uptake of flax fiber reinforced composites under humid/dry conditions

“…Furthermore, cellulosic fibers are usually lightweight (i.e., low density), cheap, abundant, and sustainable (often available from production waste) 4 . This implied a growing development in ever wider engineering contexts such as the automotive, 5 aeronautics, 6,7 or construction 8,9 sectors. However, their widespread diffusion is limited by the low interfacial adhesion of the natural fibers with the polymeric matrix 10 and the wide heterogeneity of the natural raw materials which constrain their performance stability 11 .…”

Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-based materials selection system for natural fiber as reinforcement in biopolymer composites for food packaging

“…The resulting "green biocomposites," are more environmentally friendly, as they are renewable, biodegradable, compostable, and reduce the reliance on fossil fuel (Soroudi and Jakubowicz 2013;Othman 2014;Ramamoorthy et al 2015;. Natural fibers in composites materials provide stiffness and sufficient strength, and they contribute to the unique properties of the final materials (Sapuan et al 2011;Johansson et al 2012;Al-Oqla et al 2015;Sanyang et al 2016). They also generally have lower density, high specific properties, good thermal properties, and high resistance to fracture (Puglia et al 2005;Cheung et al 2009;Majeed et al 2013;Salit 2014).…”

“…To further validate the results, six different scenarios were tested in the sensitivity analysis. Similarly, Sapuan et al (2011) applied AHP to select the most suitable natural fiber reinforced composites (NFRC) for a dashboard panel design. They evaluated 29 NFRC alternatives according to their characteristics and features including density, Young's modulus, and tensile strength.…”