DURABILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF LYOCELL-FLAX FILT FIBRE REINFORCED POLYMER COMPOSITE FABRICATED BY A COMPRESSION MOLDING TECHNIQUE

Abstract

 The natural fibers are found to be a potential replacement for synthetic fibers due to the observed advantages i.e. low density, recyclability, biodegradability, high mechanical strength, toughness and stiffness. Lyocell-flax flit fiber reinforced polymer composites was fabricated by the compression molding technique using polypropylene resin as the matrix base. The durability behaviors were determined from the experimental result of maximum yield strength of 23.1MPa at a force of 5KN, compounding time of 15 minutes and a temperature of 180 C. The young’s modulus was obtained to be 3120 MPa at force of 5KN, compounding time of 15 minutes and temperature of 180 C. The mechanical properties of the individual fibers and the polymer resin were seen to be tremendously lower than that of the fabricated composite showing much improvement in mechanical strength as the young’s modulus for polypropylene was 1325MPa and yield strength 13MPa. The ultimate tensile strength for polypropylene resin was 33.1MPa. the melting temperature of polypropylene 165 C which is comparable with that of the composite 169.58 C obtained by DSC measurement.

KEYWORDS: Polymer composite, Biodegradability, Recyclability, Fiber Reinforcement, Physical Properties, Chemical Properties.