Mechanical and Erosion Characteristics of Natural Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite: Effect of Filler Size

Abstract

The thermosetting and thermoplastic materials reinforced with natural fiber are widely used in the automotive sector. Variety of natural fibers like jute, kenaf, hemp, banana, sisal, etc. are used in FRP composite due to lightweight, eco-friendly, easy availability and low cost. In addition, FRP composite also meets the structural and robustness demands of interior and exterior components of the vehicles. However, the erosion behavior of the FRP composites is a critical parameter in the dusty environment. In this work, needle punched nonwoven fiber composite is prepared using vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) process with variation in filler size (10, 25 and 50 μm). The composites are prepared using 4 layers of needle punched jute fiber of 250 × 250 mm and mill scale is added 10 wt% of epoxy. Tensile and flexural properties are evaluated. The erosion tests are carried out using irregular silica sand at different impingement angles, impact velocities and environment temperatures. It is observed that the composite C1 with 10 μm filler size shows the maximum tensile and flexural strength 45.564 ± 0.72 MPa and 73.16 ± 1.34 MPa respectively. It is also observed that the composite C1 (10 μm) exhibited lower erosion rate of 216.67 mg/kg at 30° impingement angle compared to C2 (25 μm) and C3 (50 μm).