Effect of Fiber Orientation on Water Absorption and Hardness of Lowland Bamboo Fiber Reinforced Composite

Abstract

Cost efficiency and environmental friendliness are the two primary factors that attract use of composite materials as structural materials. The term “natural fibers” refers to materials made from animal, plant, or mineral sources, where plant fibers such as flax, hemp, jute, coir, cotton, wool, bamboo, banana, sisal, and others are the main fibers used for recent studies. Because of their cutting-edge mechanical qualities, composite materials dominate all other developing materials. This study aims to examine how bamboo fiber orientation affects the hardness and water absorption of composite materials with bamboo fiber reinforcement. The mechanical test results revealed that less amount of water was absorbed by the fabricated composite material than the natural lowland bamboo. The synthesized bamboo fiber showed less water absorption capability. This is due to the properties of the matrix material (hydrophobic) that binds the fibers. The multi-directional bamboo fiber-reinforced absorbs a minimum percentage of water, i.e. 4.7%. On the other hand, the results of the unidirectional samples revealed a higher Vickers hardness value among all samples. This is due to the strength of the fiber in the longitudinal direction of the fiber orientation. The unidirectional bamboo fiber-reinforced composite test results showed high Vickers hardness value, which is 116 HV.