Investigations on Tensile and Flexural Behaviours of Fly Ash / Coir Reinforced Polymer Matrix Composites

HIGHLIGHTS

• Influence of Fly ash and Coir Fibre in mechanical performance of Polymer composite

• Polymers exhibits varying performance in tensile and flexural loading

• A threshold fly ash proportion has been limited to 5- 10%.

• Increasing fibre length shows improvement in strength whereas short fibre are good enough for modulus.

Abstract

Natural fibre reinforced polymer composites are often a better substitute to man-made fibre reinforced polymer composites because of their wide availability, economical, recyclability and biodegradability. In this paper, natural fibre reinforced polymer composites are made using coir/ fly ash as reinforcements. Influences of polymer types, natural fibre (coir) length and wt. % of fly ash on tensile and flexural behaviors are investigated. General purpose resin, Vinyl ester and Isophthalic resin are the different polymers used in making samples. The samples are prepared according to Taguchi Design of Experiments using L9 orthogonal array. To explore the significance of participating factors such as polymer type, natural fibre (coir) length and wt. % of fly ash on the tensile and flexural behaviors, ANOVA is implemented. Regression equations reveal that the type of polymer influences tensile and flexural behaviors more than that of natural fibre (coir) length and wt. % of fly ash.

Keywords:
Fly ash; Coir fibre; Polymer composites; General-purpose resin; Vinyl ester; Isophthalic resin.