Evaluation of Mechanical Properties of Banana and S-glass Fiber-Reinforced Hybrid Nanosilica Composite

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to evaluate the mechanical properties of banana and S-glass fiber-reinforced hybrid nanosilica composite. The glass and other synthetic fiber-reinforced polyester composites give high strength when compared with the natural fiber-reinforced composite, but their applications are limited because of the high cost of fabrication. So to overcome the cost of fabrication and to meet the high strength as of synthetic composite, a new hybrid composite is fabricated by using 50% of natural fiber and 50% of synthetic fiber. The new composite is fabricated by reinforcing the stacking layers of woven banana and s-glass fibers with the polyester resin as a matrix and nanosilica as filler material. Different samples were prepared by changing the stacking sequence of fiber placed in the composite and weight percentage of nanosilica powder that is mixed into the resin. The fabrication is done by the hand layup method. The mechanical properties like tensile strength, flexural strength, tensile modulus, and flexural modulus were studied. The morphological study is done through a scanning electron microscope to observe the fibers pullout, stacking of fibers, and the behavior of matrix in the hybrid composite. The change of weight percentage of nanosilica and the stacking sequence of fibers in the composite show the improvement in mechanical properties.