Experimental Investigation and Analysis of Maize Natural Fibre Composites for Structural Applications

Abstract

Natural fibre composites are the recent upcoming materials used in structural and other general engineering applications. They are more popular because of their abundance, native state of recycle, eco friendliness and sustainable material features. Natural fibres as reinforcement in the composite materials have attained new interests to the global sustainable world. As the fossil fuels are depleting, it is the time to focus on alternative material that can compensate with the present synthetic world of composites. Major applications of these natural fibres are in the structural and automotive sectors. The research work is focused on study of maize fibres and their composites with matrix of thermoset polymer for structural applications processed through Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) and with hand lay-up methods. Maize composites, Hybrid Composites (maize and jute fabric of single and double layer), and Bio-composites are processed. Maize composites and Bio-composites were processed by VARTM technique. Sandwiched hybrid composites were fabricated by hand layup method. Physical, Chemical, Thermal, Mechanical and Surface characterization tests were carried out for the performance and analysis of maize fibre composites. Natural fibres of pulverized maize stalk and matrix with different weight fractions are considered for the present work. As natural fibres are hydrophilic, chemical treatment of the fibres are carried out in order to make hydrophobic. Work is also concentrated in processing maize stalk particles as fibre and expoxidized soy bean oil as matrix to obtain a bio-composite material. Finite element analysis is also carried out for thermal studies of composites with maize long fibres with few assumptions. The result shows that the fibre and matrix interactions are better and improved with the chemical treatment. Experimental and Finite element results are compared and the results are presented and discussed.