Effect of Fiber Length on Thermal Properties of PALF Reinforced Bisphenol: A Composite

Abstract

Composites are becoming an essential part of today's materials because they offer advantages such as low weight, corrosion resistance, high fatigue strength, faster assembly etc. Composites are used as materials ranging from making, aircraft structures to golf clubs, electronic packaging to medical equipments.Composites are generating curiosity and interest in students all over the world,use of natural fibers as reinforcement in polymeric composites for technical application has been a research subject of scientist. Among several natural fibers, Pineapple leaf fibre (PALF) is one that has good potential as reinforcement in polymer composite. PALF was extracted from raw pineapple leaf; it was then chemically treated and dried in hot air oven to hinder the water content. In the present work the composite specimens are prepared by using Bisphenol-A (BPA) as a matrix and the short PALF fiber with length < 15mm and 30% volume fraction as reinforcement. The composites were prepared by hand lay-up technique. The objective of the present work is to investigate the thermal properties such has specific heat, thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity of Short PALF reinforced Bisphenol-A composite. The composites reinforced with the fiber length of 2mm, 4mm, 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm & 14mm was subjected to thermal analysis to check the fecibility of utilizing PALF reinforced Bisphenol-A composite for thermal applications. From this experimental study, it was observed that the fiber length greatly influences the thermal behavior of PALF reinforced Bisphenol-A composites.