Tensile Properties of Natural Fiber Reinforced Unsaturated Polyester Composites

Abstract

Natural fiber reinforced polymer composites were fabricated with sisal fiber as reinforcement and unsaturated polyester as matrix. The sisal fibre was extracted by water retting method followed by chemical modification of the fibers using 5%NaOH solution at room temperature. Randomly oriented chopped fiber with different fiber length (10mm, 30mm & 50mm) and constant weight fraction(10wt%) are used for the present experimental study. The fabrication of composites were carried out by hand lay-up technique and tensile test of the composite was carried out on the computerized universal testing machine. An attempt was made to find out the influence of fiber length on the tensile properties of composites. The results showed that the tensile strength, young's modulus and percentage of elongation of sisal fiber reinforced polymer composite increased with increasing in length of fiber.