MODELLING MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF SELECTED NATURAL FIBER REINFORCED COMPOSITES FOR AUTOMOBILE APPLICATION

MODELLING MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF SELECTED NATURAL FIBER REINFORCED COMPOSITES FOR AUTOMOBILE APPLICATION

Statement of the Problem

Althoughtremendous research results have been published regarding natural fiber mercerization treatment, which is the primary fiber treatment technique,there are still scanty works conducted in dealing with interaction of factors and optimizing the mercerization treatment conditions. 3 Most parameters considered in mercerization treatment were alkali concentration, fiber soaking temperature and fiber soaking duration. Although similar types of reinforced fiber are used, it could give different values in its final composite mechanical properties due to different parameter setting during a mercerization treatment process. Therefore, there is a significant need to conduct further work focusing on main effect and interaction effect of mercerization parameters setting toward enhancement of natural fiber reinforced composite mechanical properties (Hashim et al, 2012).The case is similar for other chemical treatments which have received less research attention in comparison to mercerization. In addition, the traditional way of measuring the Modulus of Elasticity of a material is to measure the slope of the Stress-Strain curve in the linear-elastic region of the curve, but this technique produces values that are inaccurate, often by a factor of two or more, because of contributions to the strain from material creep or deflection of the test machine. It has been suggested that accurate values of Modulus of Elasticity are measured dynamically: by exciting the natural vibrations (vibration at natural frequency which is related to stiffness and mass) of a beam or wire or by measuring the velocity of longitudinal or shear sound waves in the material (Ashby and Cebon, 2011). There are hardly works available in open literature that present an approach to improve the accuracy of properties obtained from this traditional method. Thirdly, homogenous isotropic linear elastic materials have their elastic properties uniquely determined by any two moduli among six elastic moduli: Young’s modulus, Poisson ratio, shear modulus, bulk modulus, Lame’s modulus and wave modulus. Given any two, any other of the elastic moduli can be calculated (Bower, 2011). There are scarcely works available in open literature that provide at least two moduli for natural fibers studied, thus posing a challenge in 4 modeling composite properties from those of the fiber and matrix, making research in the later area also scanty. The purpose of this study is to proffer solution to these observed short falls in research, with focus on application of natural fiber reinforced composites in automobile applications.

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