Effect of volume fraction on the flextural strength and modulud of woven composite

The project entitled The Effect of Fiber Volume Fraction on The Flexural Properties of Woven Composite generally explained the effect of increasing fiber volume fraction on the behaviour of flexural properties of woven composite. This behaviour can be interpreted into flexural properties versus fiber volume fraction curve which will show how these properties evolve whether increased or decreased when the fiber volume fraction is increased. The woven composite is fabricated with woven glass fiber and polyester resin through hand lay up method with the fiber volume fraction ranging from 0.17 to 0.33. Specimens are made out of the composite with six samples for each fiber volume fraction to be tested through the flexural test based on JIS K 7055, Testing method for flexural properties of glass fiber reinforced plastics. Japanese Standards Association. The specimens were tested under 50kN of flexural load and then a load-displacement curve was obtained to find the flexural strength and flexural modulus of the composite using two specific formulas. From these data, two graphs of flexural strength and flexural modulus versus fiber volume fraction were plotted so that the behaviour of these two properties can be observed. From this test, the graphs produced was almost consistent with the previous studies which is both of the flexural properties were increased linearly due to the increasing of fiber volume fraction until it reached a certain stage where the volume of the resin is no longer enough to cover the entire composite. Thus, the load cannot be distributed effectively by the resin which caused both properties to decreased when it reach Vf = 0.33