Thermal Stability Effect On Physical And Flexural Properties Of Hybrid Glass/Jute Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites

Introduction of natural fibers with partial replacement of synthetic fibers in tooling materials could lead to new venture in composite tooling industries.This is due to the environmental concern on the recyclability limitation of synthetic fiber made composites as well as their potential in weight and cost reduction.The primary goal of this research is to fabricate a green hybrid glass/jute fibre reinforced epoxy composite for potential tooling material via vacuum infusion technique and valuate the thermal cycle effect on its flexural properties.In the first stage the processing parameters of the vacuum infusion technique;i)supply pressure,ii) soaking time and iii)the utilization of flow media (with or without) were optimized by response surface methodology for maximum flexural properties of the hybrid glass/jute fibre reinforced epoxy composites.The flexural strength of ~ 195 MPa and flexural modulus of - 13412 MPa were achieved at optimum parameters of 100 kPa pressure and 120 minutes soaking time with the utilization of flow media during the vacuum infusion process.In the second stage,the hybrid glass/jute fiber reinforced epoxy laminated composite was prepared with the optimum process paramaters and exposed to 50 times thermal cycles at three different temperature;i)room temperature,ii)120 °C and iii)200 celcious and tested for flexural properties.The reduction in flexural properties of around 40% was recorded composites exposed to 200 °C thermal cycles when compared with those at room temperature and at 120 °C.It was resulted from partial degradation of natural fibers at 200°C.The composites which exposed to thermal cycle at 120 °C showed stable flexural properties as well as physical properties even at 50 thermal cycles.The findings indicate that the hybridization between glass and jute fiber exhibit promising potential to be used as tooling materials with weight reduction of almost 25%