Designing, processing and mechanical characterization of bamboo fiber based composites

Advanced glass and carbon-fiber thermoset based composites have infiltrated into leading markets such as aerospace, automobile, marine, electronics and sports industry over the last century. The rapid rise in the demand due to the high strength/unit weight of these materials. These materials have enhanced mechanical properties and also interesting thermal and anti-corrosive properties. But rising concerns of the use of non–renewable oil based resources, ways of disposal being incineration and land filling, high carbon footprint and high costs have promoted the applications of natural fiber composites which are bio-degradable and are manufactured from renewable materials which are cheaper, lighter, less abrasive, chemically and thermally insulated but weaker in strength as compared to glass fiber composites. Hence, the research was based on the natural fiber composite laminates manufactured from bamboo fiber as the main constituent because of its high specific strength and high strength to cost ratio. Bamboo fibers was also processed with glass fiber to identify and understand the scope of replacing or substituting synthetic fibers in various applications. Bamboo fiber exhibits enhanced mechanical properties and has a very high potential for partially substituting glass fiber for secondary and tertiary load applications. Hence, bamboo fiber hybrid composites with glass fiber were also processed and characterised. Epoxy resin - Araldite LY 556 was used as the matrix because of the high compatibility with bamboo fibers, glass fibers and has high mechanical properties in its pure form. Nine different combinations of balanced symmetric laminates were manufactured with bamboo being in uniaxial, cross ply and quasi-isotropic orientations. To assess mechanical properties of these different types of laminates, uniaxial tension test, four-point bending test, charpy test and water absorption tests were conducted. Results show high mechanical properties for uniaxial bamboo laminate whereas when processed with uniaxial glass fiber, quasi-isotropic bamboo fiber with 60 degree orientation with glass fibers exhibits high mechanical properties. Thus this can potentially open the door to numerous opportunities for applications in the composite market by manufacturing environmentally sustainable materials using natural fibers.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering