Comparative study of the mechanical properties of polyester resin with and without reinforcement with fiber-glass and furcraea cabuya fibers

A commercially available polyester resin was reinforced with cabuya fibers. The experimental variables were the fiber loading and the length of the fiber. Tensile strength, flexural strength, and the Izod impact resistance were measured for the samples and compared to the polyester resin performance without reinforcement. Mechanical properties of the cabuya fiber reinforced material were also compared with the same resin but reinforced with glass fibers. An increase in fiber load decreases the tensile strength for the cabuya reinforced composite, where a value of 52.6 MPa corresponded to the tensile stress of the resin without reinforcement and a value of 34.5 MPa for the best reinforcement achieved with cabuya. An increase in both fiber load and length increases the Young’s modulus of the cabuya reinforced material, and a maximum value of 2885 MPa was obtained. The Young’s modulus and impact resistance values for the cabuya composite (2885 MPa and 100.87 J/m, respectively) reached higher values than those obtained for non-reinforced polyester material (2639 MPa and 5.82 J/m, respectively), and lower than the glass fiber composite (5526 MPa and 207.46 J/m, respectively); while the tensile and flexural strength obtained for the cabuya composite (34.5 MPa and 32.6 MPa, respectively) were lower than the unreinforced (52.6 MPa and 62.9 MPa, respectively) and glass fiber reinforced polyester (87.3 MPa and 155 MPa, respectively).