Abstract:
In recent years researchers are
focusing on manufacturing new products by
using wastes as raw materials. Among them, the
products which are developed using natural
fibre wastes have gained substantial attention
due to their excellent properties. This research
is conducted to investigate the feasibility of
producing waste-based Natural Fibre
Reinforced Composites (NFRC) using Palmyra
fibre as reinforcement material and waste Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) as the matrix. To
check the effect of fibre length and the fibre
content on the flexural performance, two fibre
lengths (20 mm, and 40 mm), and three fibre
volume fractions (15%, 20%, and 25%) were
used. The Hand lay-up process was used to
manufacture the waste-based NFRC. A hot
press machine and a cold press machine were
used to prepare the moulded waste-based
NFRC sheets. The flexural properties of the
NFRCs were significantly influenced by the
content of Palmyra fibre. According to the
overall findings obtained, 15% of reinforcement
content with having 40mm length of fibre can be
identified as the optimum conditions to fulfil the
required outcomes of this research with
desirable mechanical properties.
