Bio-Fiber Reinforced Composite Materials

The usage of composite materials in engineering has become unavoidable due to the enrichment in properties, drop in the manufacturing cost and suitability to many applications. The features of the polymer composite mainly depend on the choice and composition of reinforcement. Bio fibre reinforcements have confirmed excellent properties, application, and cost in the current situation. The excellent accessibility and availability of bio fibres are the primary motivation for developing new attention in sustainable technology. Bio fibres are a renewable resource that has been replenished for many years by nature and human creativity. The enormous disparity in qualities and characteristics of bio fibre reinforced composites makes using them a difficult task. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight and to give a broad review of recent progress and the options for the future. The present book covers tribological and thermal properties of bio fibres for polymeric resins and explains the different pre-treatment methods used by the researchers for the enhancement. It will provide an introduction about the bio fibres and their bio-composites and point researchers in the right direction.

In the modern world, polymeric composites derived from renewable resources, such as biodegradable polymers, are sought out because of their inherent, intrinsic characteristics, such as biodegradability, abundance, environmental friendliness, flexibility, and simplicity in processing. Also, manufactured artificial E-glass fibers are unhealthy and capable of causing cancer, as proven by nature. Natural fibers are due to their natural growth characteristics, making them more accessible to processing and absorption of CO₂. Many researchers concentrate on fibers such as banana, sisal, bamboo, and grass to research alternatives to common natural fibers, including re-grown brush made from grass, which is made into a polymer matrix to degrade naturally and be eco-friendly. Natural fibers (NF) are suitable for producing polymeric composites due to mechanical properties, such as low density, high strength, high flexural modulus, and high impact strength. The present study focused on Pineapple Leaf Fiber (PALF) reinforced polymer composites with a 15% weight percentage. The mechanical properties of PALF reinforced polymer composites are compared with existing synthetic fiber composites. The experimental results show that the PALF reinforced composites having stress ranges of 70–110 kPa; Young’s modulus ranges of (4.81–438 kPa). The strain developed in composite material is (11.01–13.29%), and the bending strength of the material is 14 MPa.

Polymer based composites are nowadays in high demand due to customized characteristics during its processing stage. In order to increase the bio-degradability, polymeric composites are mostly incorporated with bio-fibres and sometimes with both bio-fibres and artificial fibres in hybrid form. Many researches have been attempted to prove that bio-fibres are on par with the artificial fibres in terms of strengths and most of the researches have explored it successfully. Several researches have been made in the last decade to study the characters of the bio-fibre composites and few on the applications of such composites in different fields. Hence, the present survey has been aimed to explore the applications of composites made from bio-fibres, artificial fibres and under a combination of both in major areas. This survey also show a vivid view on difficulties encountered during composite preparation, suitability of the prepared composite and a comparative analysis on its characters with the conventional materials for a specific application.

In recent years, considerable attention has been paid to the development and use of natural fibres since they are eco-friendly, renewable and reasonably economical. Natural fibres can be suitably used as a substitute for synthetic materials since they are lesser in weight and can conserve energy. They are available in abundance and incur low costs during harvesting. They happen to be budding materials, and when reinforced with a suitable matrix, they can substitute metal-based materials/composites that are presently used in aerospace and automotive industries. On the other hand, synthetic fibers are known to generate toxic byproducts and pose issues in recycling. However, natural fibers are prone to degradation when they are exposed to the external environment. The fibers pose a challenge while mixing with the polymer matrix. Surface modification of fibers is effectively carried out to overcome the weak interfacing bonding between the polymer and fibers. With the ever-growing environmental concern and excessive usage of petroleum-based reserves, the world is looking to develop composites that are compatible with the environment. In order to have a healthier impact on the environment, industries are often craving to use eco-friendly materials. The present paper focuses on the research work carried out by various investigators for synthesizing bio fiber-based composites aimed at using them in a variety of engineering fields.

The worldwide awareness of the environment urged the search for new composites based on bio fibres. As a result, the focus shifted back to natural fibres, which are biodegradable and typically less expensive than synthetic fibres.Besides, there exists a huge amount of agricultural waste suitable to be used as bio fibre composite materials. Such composites find a wide application, for instance in the automotive industry, structural components, panels, noise control, acoustic wall, agro-fibres biocomposites, wind turbine blades, and many more. Synthetic polymers or eco-friendly polymers, such as poly(glycolic acid), poly(lactic acid), and their copolymers—poly(lactic-co-glycolide) or poly(l-lactic acid), polydioxanone, and poly(l-lactic acid), can be used to strengthen these fibres (caprolactone).The choice of both components’ biodegradable in the bio-composites becomes crucial from the environmental perspective. This chapter covers a wide range of topics, including data on fibre/polymer composites and/or bio-composites, as well as the design of fibre composites. Also, this chapter reviews the natural fibre/reinforced polymers (NFRPs) degradability.

Green composites are sustainable materials that are composed of biodegradable polymer and naturally occurred fibre. These biodegradable green composites are light in weight and possess fairly good mechanical properties. The incorporation of a higher percentage of natural fibre into the polymer, selection of suitable coupling agent and treatment method, to name a few, makes it quite challenging to develop green composites. Also, the mechanical response of these composites is determined by many factors such as fibre-matrix bonding, surface treatment of fibre, fibre weight ratio, addition of various additives, and fibre aspect ratio. It is a dire need to develop green composite with superior mechanical properties to extend their application in various engineering fields. In the present study, bamboo in different forms like strip, short fibre, and woven mat was reinforced with biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) to develop the green composites. The different forms of bamboo chosen for investigation were also chemically treated. Two types of chemical treatments were performed using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and potassium hydroxide (KOH) to improve the surface characteristics of the different forms of bamboo. The green composite developed in this study was manufactured by compression molding. The properties of chemically treated and non-treated green composite specimens were experimentally evaluated and compared.

The present study aims to prepare Pineapple Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite. The kerf taper angle is then measured by cutting the composite with an abrasive water jet. The primary goal is to reduce the kerf taper angle in order to optimize machining performance. In this way, mathematical model was first developed by employing experimental approaches, beginning with the design plan called box-Behnken using response surface technique. The model's predicted values were found to be reasonably close to the actual experimental values. Then, a hybrid SCCSA algorithm has been utilized for optimizing the AWJ process parameters by single objective optimization is considered, and optimal value is determined. The results indicated that the SCCSA optimization strategy is a viable and effective method for optimizing the AWJ cutting process.

Polymer Matrix Composite (PMC) is a potential candidate material for structural, automotive and aerospace applications due to its high strength to weight ratio, non-corrosive and affordable. Because of these reasons, PMC’s are widely used as an alternate material for both load bearing and non-load bearing applications. However, synthetic fibre usage in PMC fabrication limits its application in various sectors due to increased environmental awareness like non-degradability, land-filling and so on. This forced research community to develop eco-friendly material associated with equivalent mechanical properties and where bio-fibres are coming to picture here. Recently, an importance of bio-fibre reinforced PMC’s have been realised and numerous studies were carried out to study various mechanical properties such as tensile, flexural, hardness and impact properties of bio-fibre reinforced PMC’s. In this chapter, the effect of single bio-fibre, hybrid bio-fibre and synergistic effect of filler-fibre combination on mechanical properties are presented and reason/mechanism for properties improvement is analysed. This motivates novice researchers to understand failure mechanisms under mechanically loaded environment and lead to widen the way to carry out further research in bio-fibre composites.

This research involves developing the composite laminates using natural fibers of neem fiber, bidirectional woven banyan fibers, sawdust cellulose with epoxy matrix varying with reinforcement weight fraction to quantify the fatigue behaviour of epoxy composite. As per the ASTM standard fatigue test was performed with 3 different ratios of hybrid composites are 90/45 g, 67.5/67.5 g, and 45/90 g of banyan and neem fibers. In this study, the life of composite laminates can reveal from fatigue analysis in samples ‘A’ withstand more cycles of rotation 5979 compared with the other two samples, which indicates when increasing bidirectional banyan is woven mat weight percentage was given the positive influence of variable fatigue load and at the same time short neem fibers are shows less efficient life of hybrid composite. The surface morphological analysis was used to analyze the failure mode during the fatigue test of this composite laminates by scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis.

The primary aim of this research is to look into the mechanical properties of hybrid composites materials. Hybrid composite laminates made different reinforcements have found use in the automotive industry and aerospace industries. These laminates incorporated the significant of the reinforcements used in constructions. Hybrid composite laminates comprising carbon fiber and kenaf bio fiber with changing stacking sequences over the hand layup process. Epoxy resin (LY556) and hardener (HY951) are present in the matrix material with a mixed ratio of 10:1. Four different hybrid laminates were produced with five order kenaf and of carbon in different stacking sequences. The arranged laminates were cut according to ASTM and exposed to mechanical properties. Fractured surfaces of the sample microstructure were analyzed.

Natural fibers are widely used in composite fabrication as they are cheap, safe to manufacture, recyclable, bio-degradable and eco-friendly. In this study, three types of composite panels such as woven Jute fiber and epoxy (JE), woven Jute fiber and styrene-ethylene-butylene- styrene (SEBS) with epoxy (JES) and woven Jute fiber and epoxy with Al metal powder (JEA) are fabricated using hand layup method to investigate the improvement in their mechanical properties. The mechanical proper-ties of three kinds are compared for their effectiveness in enhancing the mechanical properties. It is revealed that the addition of SEBS/Al improves the tensile, flexural, impact strength of the composites.

The use of natural fibers to reinforce polymer matrix, called as green engineering has recently attracted the industries for their high specific strength, low weight and biodegradability etc. Palm fibers at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 55wt% are used to synthesize the eco-friendly composites. The mechanical properties of composites are investigated according to the respective ASTM standards. The vibration characteristics such as the resonance frequency and damping coefficient composites are determined through experimental modal analysis. The morphological structure, internal cracks, mechanism of failure of the composites are examined and presented. The best mechanical properties and damping coefficient are observed from 50wt% of fibers loaded bio-composite. The increase of fillers more than 50wt% starts decreasing the properties and hence the highest loading of palm fibers certain to be 50%. The results observed from the examinations will be useful for industries for sustainable design and analysis of their products.

In this present research we aimed to detecting mechanical properties of Aloevera–Bamboo–Palm-Kevlar fiber reinforced composite materials. Among them three different combinational fabrication was performed (i) Type I (blend of aloevera and bamboo) (ii) Type II (blend of bamboo and palm) and (iii) Type III (blend of palm and aloevera). The mechanical characterization of naturally derived bio-composites was further analyzed. The Type-III strains showed higher strength as compared to other bio-composite fabrications in tensile (175 Mpa), flexural (253.96 Mpa), and hardness property (68 RHN). Similarly, the morphological characterization through SEM analysis displayed that in hybrid combinations adhesion between fibers and matrix was appropriate.

Natural Fiber-Reinforced Composites (NFRC) are owing to their decomposability, biodegradability, and cost-efficient. They can be used as a reinforced material with natural/synthetic resins to formulate a composite material for various applications. The present work investigates the influence of fiber content of fabricated ramie/areca natural fiber composite on tensile and flexural strength by varying their fabricating process parameters, namely alkali concentration, curing temperature, and compression pressure. A scanning electron microscope was used to assess the mechanical and metallurgical properties of the fabricated hybrid composite. Results revealed that the quality of bonding and defects characteristics of the fractured surfaces of the composite. Furthermore, a regression model was developed for each response, such as tensile and flexural strength, to introduce an evolutionary algorithm, namely the Firefly algorithm, to find optimal settings of processing parameters of the composite. Further, the algorithmic results were validated with experimental results to check the adequacy of the model. The results revealed that the obtained optimal processing parameters close to the experimental values confirm adequacy and yield the maximum tensile and flexural strength of 76.25 and 136.36 MPa.

Polypropylene considered to be one of the evolving polymers in the locomotive area, besides several investigators primarily concentrating their study on polypropylene composites at present being advantageous in numerous confronting environmental challenges at present situation. The industrial and research applications of composites reinforced with natural fibers have been increased owing to excellent compensations when compared to synthetic fibers. Currently numerous manufacturers in automobile sector concentrate on eco-friendly automobile parts production that can reduce the production cost, besides improved fuel efficiency. The current study is considered based on the fabrication of basalt / polypropylene composite produced through a combined method of hand lay-up techniques. To explore the glass transition temperature (T_g) of the composite thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis was employed. Three-point bending experiment and tensile tests of polypropylene/basalt composites were investigated depending upon the number of basalt fabric layers. The bonding between matrix and basalt fiber at the interface is superior as revealed through SEM and EDX microscopy. The thermal resistance of basalt fibers were optimum at temperature range of 30–900 °C as found through thermogravimetric analysis.

The bio fibre composites thermal stability is an essential factor to consider, as the processing temperature plays a critical role in the manufacturing process of composites. At higher temperatures, the natural fibre components (i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin), start to degrade and their properties change. Different methods are used in the literature to determine the thermal properties of bio fibre composite materials as well as to help to understand and determine their suitability for a particular application. The thermal stability of composites is investigated using TGA, DSC and DMA. The most frequent thermal properties evaluated by these methods are the weight loss percentage, the degradation temperature, T_g and viscoelastic properties. This chapter presents the main techniques used for thermal analysis of bio fibre composites. The main factors that affect the thermal properties of bio fibre composite materials (fibre and matrix type, the presence of additive fillers, fibre content, and fibre orientation, the chemical treatment of the fibres, manufacture process, and type of loading) are briefly discussed.

Natural fibre inclusion in the polymer composites as reinforcement material has achieved rising applications in engineering and technology. Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) can be considered as one of the useful tools for measuring phase variations in NFRPMCs and damping in terms of time, temperature, frequency, atmosphere and stress. The applications of DMA include pharmaceutical and biomedical science, chemical industry, automotive industry, oil and gas industry. The fibre contents, fibre shape and sizes, orientations, fibre treatment, stacking sequences and type of matrix in the NFPMCs influence DMA. Dynamic loading conditions are often staggered in mechanical systems due to live loads. Therefore, in this paper, extensive source of reported literature concerning DMA of NFRPMCs and the effect of different natural fibres, chemical treatment, fillers, matrix and compositions were examined in detail.

Sisal natural fiber is an alternative used in engineering applications for manufacturing a variety of products. The present study focuses on the wear performance of woven sisal fiber- epoxy composites using a mathematical model. The experiments were conducted on a pin-on-disc wear tester against EN8 steel by adopting the design of experiments (DOE). Wear loss is predicted by the second-order polynomial Response Surface Method (RSM), and its predictability is asserted by considering the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The parameters applied load, sliding speed, and sliding distance are also investigated in detail. Model suitability is analyzed. From the analysis, it is evident that the model is useful to evaluate the wear performance of sisal fiber epoxy composites.

Natural fibre reinforced composites packed with Multi Wall Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) are focused by the researchers due to their great tribo and mechanical properties. To ensure collective mechanical and wear qualities, fibre reinforced polymer composites must be hybridised; thus, this study examines the manufacturing and tribological performance of natural fiber-glass reinforced hybrid composites. Compression moulding was used to combine natural fibres like jute, flax, and banana with glass fibre. Particulate MWCNT were disseminated in epoxy resin through ultrasonic bath sonicator, which was then employed as the matrix face for composites reinforced with natural fibre. The sliding wear behaviour of composites reinforced with glass-natural fiber and filled with MWCNT is evaluated using a pin-on-disc wear testing setup. Using D-optimal design, second-order mathematical models were created to forecast particular rate of wear and friction co-efficient by considering wt% of MWCNT, sliding speed load. The surface morphology of worn-out surfaces was studied by SEM analysis.

A bio composite is a material composed of a matrix (resin) and natural fibre reinforcement. Environmental concerns as well as the exorbitant costs of synthetic fibres sparked the development of natural fibre reinforcement in polymer composite. The concept of using green materials has become more popular over the last decade. With heightened awareness of the importance of environmental preservation, sincere efforts can indeed be cited all over the world in the search for biodegradable and bio-based sources. Bio composites have the proclivity to absorb dampness via the interface, matrix, reinforcement and the zones already adversely impacted by the formation of pores, cracks and delamination of layers. Due to the positive uses of bio fibre materials, many researchers have been obligated to investigate the potential use of natural fibres as reinforcement in bio composites. Due to the mechanical qualities, low density, environmental benefits, renewability, and commercial viability, cellulosic fibres are becoming increasingly tempting for the creation of bio-based products. Natural fibre polymer composites have recently acquired popularity for a variety of industrial applications due to the relatively low density and renewability. The main key factors in the research and development of bio composites are the hazards of synthetic fibres, recycling issues, and toxic by-products. Bio composites are environmentally friendly, renewable, non-abrasive, and non-toxic, with characteristics equivalent to synthetic fibre composites and used in a broad array of applications. Due to the above-mentioned merits, developing nations are increasingly turning to new green materials, including natural fibres, to help meet the demands of weight reduction, environmental concerns, and customer satisfaction. Nevertheless, effectively replacing green bio composites presents multiple barriers. The most daunting barrier in this field is the lack of data on the effectiveness of biocomposites characterized by a wide range of constituents. This article outlines the challenges in the development of bio composites towards sustainability.