Tensile Mechanical Properties of Natural Fibre Composites – A Statistical Approach

Abstract The main objective and the originality of this work are to create a hybrid-natural fibre composite by the RMS method. Hybrid composites are manufactured by combining two or more dissimilar kinds of fibre in a single matrix. In the first section, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) using a Box-Behnken experimental design and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) are applied to investigate the effects of the type of fibres, chemical treatment, volume fraction and treatment time on the mechanical properties (ultimate tensile strength and Young’s modulus) in the tensile quasi-static loading when used two resins namely, epoxy and polyester. In the studied range, statistical analysis of the results showed that selected variables had a significant effect on the mechanical properties, except the treatment time that has a very weak significance effect on the mechanical properties. Then, to maximize the mechanical properties, the optimal conditions coded by RSM were found: the type of fibres (X 1 ) of [-0.28 and -0.33], the chemical treatment (X 2 ) of -1, the volume fraction of fibre (X 3 ) of 1 and the treatment duration (X 4 ) of [-0.97 and -1] for epoxy resin matrix. Similarly, when used the polyester resin matrix; the type of fibres (X 1 ) of -0.26, the chemical treatment (X 2 ) of -1, the volume fraction (X 3 ) of 0.99 and the sinking time (X 4 ) of [-0.94 and -0.93]. The obtained optimum parameters were confirmed experimentally in the second section