Abstract:
Composite materials are dominant among all emerging materials because of its advanced
mechanical properties. While focusing on composite materials, the main points to be considered
are cost effectiveness and environmental friendliness. In recent years, due to environmental
concerns and growing cost of synthetic materials, the focus of research on natural fibers as an
alternative reinforcement in polymer composites have created an enormous interest of many
researchers and scientists. The natural fibers are fibers which consist of animal, plant fibers and
minerals such as flax, hemp, jute, coir, cotton, wool, bamboo, banana, sisal, okra and etc. The
aim of this work is to characterize the okra fiber reinforced epoxy composite material
mechanical properties under different fiber orientation. The fiber extraction can be done using
mechanical extraction (retting) technique. Optical microscope test of okra fiber are pentagonal
and hexagonal, where Nano-fibrils are aligned and bounded together with lignin and hemi cellulose. The mechanical test result reveal that the bi- directional okra fiber has high Vickers
hardness value 36.6HN. While the bi- directional okra fiber reinforced epoxy composite show
high flexural strength 302 MPa, tensile strength 510.6 MPa, Compression strength 168 MPa,
impact energy 30J. Random okra fibers reinforced by epoxy are round and straight, while Bi
directional okra fibers reinforced by epoxy are completely flat and twisted. The water
absorption capability of the fabricated composite material was tested and result reveal less
amount of water is absorbed than the natural okra.
