THE EFFECTS OF CHEMICAL MODIFICATION AND LAYERING ON PROPERTIES OF WOVEN AND NONWOVEN KENAF FIBER REINFORCED EPOXY COMPOSITES
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Date
2014-08
Authors
MOHD SAAD, NURUL `ATIQAH
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Abstract
The great potential of kenaf fiber combined with the new structure of woven and nonwoven fiber mat were reinforced in the epoxy resin by hand lay-up process. The design of stacking combination with different layering pattern of woven and nonwoven as a tri-layer composites was studied. However, the hydrophilic nature of kenaf fibers limits its use in high performance composites. Thus, a chemical modification of this fiber with propionic anhydride without catalyst was proposed. The result indicated that the properties of the composites were greatly influenced by fiber structure sequence and the propionic anhydride was retained in the composites which were proved by weight percent gain (WPG) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) analysis. Furthermore, the modified composites indicated significant improvement in physical, mechanical, thermal and morphological properties when compared to unmodified composites. Besides, excellent water resistance properties was shown by the modified composites. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) results proved that the interfacial bonding between fiber and matrix increased and the fibers embedded well in the matrix. On the other hand, woven composites showed better mechanical and thermal properties but slightly decreased in WPG value in contrast with nonwoven composites. The overall results showed that modified and combination of all woven layer composites enhanced the mechanical, physical and thermal properties.
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THE EFFECTS OF CHEMICAL MODIFICATION AND LAYERING