Flexural Properties of Surface-Modified Sisal Fiber-Reinforced Polyester Resin Composites

ABSTRACT

This study includes untreated sisal fibers, fibers that had been mercerized using 0.06 M NaOH and fibers cornified at 100°C in different volume fractions used as reinforcement into a general purpose unsaturated polyester resin matrix. Untreated sisal fiber-reinforced polyester resin displayed the most significant gain in flexural strength with a Modulus of Rupture of 79.32 Mpa at 2% fiber volume fraction, which represented a 296.65% increase compared to unreinforced polyester resin. Cornified sisal fiber-reinforced polyester resin had the least significant gain in flexural strength with a maximum Modulus of Rupture of 49.71 Mpa at a 1.2% fiber volume fraction, which represented a 142.8% increase in flexural strength compared to the unreinforced polyester resin specimen. These results show that the untreated sisal fiber reinforcement could withstand the thermal effect of the exothermic curing of unsaturated polyester resin better than the surface-modified sisal fibers.

摘要

本研究包括未经处理的剑麻纤维、使用0.06M NaOH进行丝光处理的纤维以及在100°C下以不同体积分数进行角化的纤维, 这些纤维用作通用不饱和聚酯树脂基体的增强材料. 未经处理的剑麻纤维增强聚酯树脂在弯曲强度方面表现出最显著的提高, 在纤维体积分数为2%时, 断裂模量为79.32MPa, 与未经处理的聚酯树脂相比增加了296.65%. 在纤维体积分数为1.2%时, 角化剑麻纤维增强聚酯树脂的弯曲强度增加最少, 最大断裂模量为49.71 Mpa, 与未增强聚酯树脂试样相比, 弯曲强度增加142.8%. 结果表明, 与表面改性剑麻纤维相比, 未经处理的剑麻纤维增强材料能够更好地抵抗不饱和聚酯树脂放热固化的热效应.

KEYWORDS:

• Cornify
• flexural strength
• mercerize
• polyester resin
• sisal fiber
• tensile strength

关键词:

• 科尼菲
• 抗弯强度
• 丝光
• 聚酯树脂
• 剑麻纤维
• 抗拉强度

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge Rea Vipingo Sisal Estate Ltd. for generously providing all the sisal fiber that was used in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Availability of data and materials

The data sets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.