Authors : R. Gopakumar and R. Rajesh
Abstract: The environmentally hazardous, non bio-degradable, toxic nature of synthetic materials and the depletion of their resources have necessitated engineers to look for eco-friendly, non-hazardous, bio-degradable, atoxic and obtained from renewable sources for a sustainable development. Hence, low cost vegetable fibers like banana fibers, sisal, flax, ramie, coir, pineapple, etc. are used as viable alternative to the synthetic fibers. This research aims to develop a hybrid composite with unidirectional, continuous and 40% v/v hybrid of banana fiber and sisal fibers (1:1) natural rubber latex and characterise its mechanical properties like tensile strength, tear strength and hardness for both longitudinal (0°) and transverse fiber orientations (90°). Tensile strength and Tear strength for 0° fibre orientations were found to increase by 42.5 and 282.72% over pure latex sample, respectively. Samples with 90° fiber loadings also showed improved strengths.
R. Gopakumar and R. Rajesh, 2018. Development and Characterisation of Eco-Friendly 40% v/v Hybrid Banana/Sisal Fibers-Natural Rubber Latex Composite. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 13: 3505-3510.