Assessment of the Relationship Between Diameter and Tensile Strength of Piassaba (Aphandra natalia) Fibers

Sustainable development of materials is a triangle between the ecological, economic and social that aims to reduce the extraction and use of conventional materials, through the use of regenerable natural materials that cause minimal impact or like the incorporation of waste and by-products that can be recycled. Natural fibers have characteristics of technical and economic solution, an important source for its use are the palms, considered one of the most economically important plants group. Of this variety, piassaba is the name of the hard fibers brown, considered as a non-timber forest product, which can be obtained from three species of palm: Leopoldinia piassaba Wallace, Attalea funifera and Aphandra natalia. Piassaba of Aphandra natalia displays mechanical properties similar to Leopoldinia piassaba and Attalea Funifera already tested of composite materials. Like any other natural fiber, the Aphandra natalia fibers have different diameters even in each fiber. In several lignocellulosic fibers has been found that the dimension of the diameter it affect value of the tensile strength. In this work a Weibull analysis of sisal fibers tensile strength was performed to find a correlation with the diameter. It was determined that a smaller diameter of the largest fiber tensile strength, indicating a hyperbolic equation between average strength and diameter.