DEVELOPMENT AND INVESTIGATING MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF BIOCOMPOSITE ROD OF POLYLACTIC ACID REINFORCED WITH TREATED/UNTREATED SISAL FIBER
by Abhishek Punn
Abstract
Depletion of natural resources and increase in the use of the plastics has encouraged researchers to develop material that are eco-friendly with environment. This leads to development of new components that are alternative to the present material. In this thesis work, an effort has been made to develop biocomposite rod by reinforcing different sisal fiber fraction in Polylactic Acid (PLA). Standard tensile and flexural specimens have been prepared using single screw extruder as per ASTM D7205 and ASTM 4476 respectively. Maximum tensile strength 35.4 Mpa for 3wt% and maximum flexural strength 9.25 MPa for 3wt% has been attained. Maximum hardness from shore D hardness is 84 for 1 wt% treated fiber and 82.33 for 3wt% for untreated fiber has been attained. Tensile and flexural strength results showed that there is increase in strength of composite for treated fiber as compared with virgin sample but for untreated fiber reinforced composite strength decreases than virgin sample. This decrease in strength is due to weak interface between fiber and matrix analysed by the SEM images. SEM images at fracture surface shows that there are no voids observed in the virgin PLA sample but voids and fiber pull outs in untreated fiber sample are more as compared with SEM images of treated fiber.
