Experimental Study on Mechanical Behavior of Sisal and Sheep Wool Fiber Reinforced Hybrid Polyester Composites

Abstract

Natural fibers from Plants and Animals have a major role in developing ‘green’ economy. Because it has attractive features of abundant availability, renewable resources, environmentally friendly, high specific strength, non- corrosive, low cost and biodegradability. Most of these natural fibers are discarded in to land fill areas as wastes and removed by open burning that may lead to air pollution. Need of Structural material which are efficient and effective are vital issue for researchers. The present study focus on using of natural fibers like sheep wool and Sisal fiber for manufacturing the hybrid fiber composite (HFC) for structural application. This HFCM was synthesized by hand lay-up technique with design consideration of principal parameters like fiber orientation, fiber volume ratio, and ply arrangement. Then, mechanical tests and physical tests were conducted to characterize experimentally. Those fibers surface bind together by using polyester. In this work both theoretical and experimental studies were performed. The effects of fiber orientation, ply arrangement and fiber volume ratio on mechanical properties of the HFCM were studied. The results showed that increasing fiber content above optimum limit decreased the strength of the composite. In addition to that, concentrating Sisal fiber was preferable to enhance the strength of HFCM than concentrating wool fiber. Chopped orientation of the fiber also shows better strength than the other. SWS ply arrangement for the mat one and CSW-20% fiber volume ratio for chopped type is optimum model with 20.16 MPa and 50.22 MPa tensile strength and 127.01 MPa and 242.5 MPa modulus of elasticity respectively