Effect of Alkalization Treatment on The Tensile Strength and Interface Character Matrix-Fibber of Bamboo Petung (Dendrocalamus Asper) Reinforced Polyester Resin Composite

The purpose of this study is to determine the alkalization process effect of bamboo petung fiber (Dendrocalamus Asper) on the Tensile strength of Polyester composite reinforced with bamboo petung fiber. The alkalization process is expected to increase the bond between the automatic and the fiber which in turn can increase the tensile strength of the composite. In this study NaOH was used as an alkaline substance. NaOH is an alkali commonly used as a substance for the alkalization process in various natural fibers for natural composite reinforcing material. Alkalization was done by soaking the fiber into NaOH solution at room temperature and time variation for 1 hour, 2 hours, and 3 hours. After the alacalization process, the fiber was processed to be made into a composite with a polyester matrix with the direction of unidirectional fiber orientation. The process of making composites used vacuum infusion method. Before being used as reinforcing fibers, petung bamboo fiber composites were tested for single fiber tensile strength both after alkalization treatment and fiber before alkalization process. Composite tensile testing was conducted on all variations of both composites with fibers before Alkalization and composite after the alkalization process by using ASTM D638-03 standard. Scaning Electronics Microscope (SEM) was also conducted to observe the morphology of fibers before and after alkalization, besides that SEM was also used to determine the fracture shape of polyester composite reinforced with bamboo petung fiber. From the Tensile testing conducted on single fiber and composite, it was obtained results that either the single fibers strength or composites decreased with increasing NaOH soaking time.