A Study On Impact Properties Of Hybrid Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch/Kenaf Reinforced High Density Polyethylene Composites For Automotive Application

Md Noor, Muhamad Fahmi (2017) A Study On Impact Properties Of Hybrid Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch/Kenaf Reinforced High Density Polyethylene Composites For Automotive Application. Project Report. UTeM, Melaka, Malaysia. (Submitted)

Text (24 Pages) A Study On Impact Properties Of Hybrid Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch-Kenaf Reinforced High Density Polyethylene Composites For Automotive Application.pdf - Submitted Version Download (349kB)

Abstract

Nowadays, the natural fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites have attracted attention many researcher and industrial player as potential renewable and biodegradable source of raw material especially for automotive application. Among the potential candidate material for natural fiber composites (NFC) application is oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibres, which is a waste product in the oil palm industry. Hence, OPEFB offer very low cost with high availability, thus making it very suitable for NFC production. In this study, a novel hybrid NFC utilizing OPEFB and kenaf fibre reinforced thermoplastic high density polyethylene (HDPE) composites (OPEFB/Kenaf/HDPE) is developed. The purpose was to characterize the impact properties of hybrid OPEFB/Kenaf/HDPE composites at varying OPEFB fiber loadings. In addition, the effect of moisture to the impact properties of the hybrid OPEFB/Kenaf/HDPE composites was also investigated. The OPEFB fibre loadings were varied from 0, 10, 20, 30, and 40 wt%, with fixed HDPE contents of 60 wt%. the fibers were first crushed and sieved to size between 1 to 5 mm. Hybrid fibers were later mixed with HDPE using compounding and formed into thin plates using hot compression molding process. Finally the sample is cut to size and characterize in accordance to the ASTM D256 for the impact test using Izod impact testing apparatus. For the moisture absorption study, all samples were soaked for 29 days in distilled water prior to the impact testing. Overall results from the tests showed that hybrid composites at 30 wt% of OPEFB have the highest impact strength compared to other hybrid formulation. The hybrid formulation was able to increase up to twice the impact strength of the 100% OPEFB/HDPE composites. Furthermore, the effects of water absorption were also found to increase the impact strength for all formulation as 12.8% in average. The findings showed the potential of utilizing hybrid technique to improve the impact performance of OPEFB/HDPE composites especially to cater higher impact load bearing automotive applications.

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