Potentiality Of Utilising Non-Woven Kenaf Fibre Composite For Car Door Map Pocket

Natural fibres have become an alternative solution of fibrous material in this millennium due to increasing population. In this study, an experimental investigation was conducted to explore the potential of nonwoven kenaf as door map pocket reinforced composite. The composite was made by non-woven kenaf as a reinforcement and epoxy resin as a matrix material. The composite was fabricated by hand lay-up process and followed by vacuum bagging process. The composite was made with their thickness or layers of fibre increased, starting with one layer (L1) until six layers (L6). The results revealed that the L2 produced the best optimum tensile strength and flexural strength, increased by 114 % and 19 % respectively, compared to actual product. The highest tensile and flexural strength were L6, about 5.531 kN and 1.041 kN respectively. The evidence from this study suggests that the non-woven kenaf for door map pocket reinforced composite shows good tensile and flexural property as a potential to replace the petroleum-based composite or synthetic thermoplastics