Mechanical Behaviour of Hybrid Composites Prepared using Sisal-Pineapple-Kenaf Fibre

Variety of application use fibre reinforced composites because of their intrinsic properties in mechanical strength, renewability and low production cost compared to conventional materials. Natural fibres are environmentally friendly their use will not break the budget when used as an alternative to the regular materials. Reinforcement used in polymer is either man-made or natural. Man-made synthetic, metallic, semi-synthetic, polymer fibres have superior specific strength but their high cost of production limits its application and feasibility to make composites. Recently there is a rise in use of natural fibres from various natural resources which are available abundantly. Composites based on natural fibres have their advantages of cost in making the fibres from different vegetables, wood, animals and minerals. In this work a thorough and systematic inquiry regarding better utilization of sisal fibre for making value-added products has been carried out. Various hybrid composite test specimens as per ASTM were prepared with natural fillers such as sisal-pineapple-Kenaf fibres by using hand layup method. The physical and mechanical characteristics of prepared hybrid composite with sisal fibre, pineapple fibre and kenaf fibre are the main objective the research. The various mechanical properties of the hybrid composites like tensile strength, rupture strength, impact strength, shear strength, hardness, and wear strength are studied by standard experiment methods. The experimental results were discussed. The experiments exposed that the use of sisal fibre when compared with similar fibres in a composite increase the most of the physical properties like tensile, rupture, wear properties of the material where as impact strength of the material is lowered. Surface morphology of the sisal fibre after tensile loading is studied microscopically.