Fabrication, Evaluation and Optimization of Tensile Characteristics of Banana Pistil Reinforced Polymer Composite
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World is now concentrating on alternate material sources that are eco friendly in nature. Because of this, the use of composite materials is increasing in engineering. In the present scenario, the researchers are concentrating on natural fibers composites due to its availability, cost effective, environment friendly, formability and many other features. This paper is based on a natural fiber reinforced composite, in which the fiber (reinforcement) is obtained from the banana flower and percentage of fiber loading, effect of different chemical treatment and the suitable resin (matrix) selection was studied and the values are optimized. The banana flower is collected and the pistil part is separated from it, dried and chemically treated to increase its wettability. Then the fibers are again dried and reinforced into the chosen resins using the Hand Layup (HLU) method and allowed to cure. The banana pistil orientation is randomized throughout the composite. After curing, the composite is subjected to tensile characterization studies [1,4,8]. All the tensile tests were carried out as per the ASTM standards. The parameters were determined by using Taguchi’s experimental design method. Taguchi (Orthogonal array) and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) are employed to find the optimal levels. Confirmation tests with the optimal levels of parameters were carried out in order to illustrate the effectiveness of Taguchi’s optimization method.
Keywords: Eco friendly; Hand layup method; banana pistil; wettability; formability.