Flexural properties of alkaline treated sugar palm fibre reinforced epoxy composites

A study of the effect of alkaline treatment on the flexural properties of sugar palm fibre reinforced epoxy composites is presented in this paper. The composites were reinforced with 10% weight fraction of the fibres. The fibres were treated using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) with 0.25 M and 0.5 M concen...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bachtiar, Dandi, Salit, Mohd Sapuan, Megat Ahmad, Megat Mohamad Hamdan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universiti Malaysia Pahang 2010
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/14783/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/14783/1/Flexural%20properties%20of%20alkaline%20treated%20sugar%20palm%20fibre%20reinforced%20epoxy%20composites.pdf
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Summary:A study of the effect of alkaline treatment on the flexural properties of sugar palm fibre reinforced epoxy composites is presented in this paper. The composites were reinforced with 10% weight fraction of the fibres. The fibres were treated using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) with 0.25 M and 0.5 M concentration solution for 1 hour, 4 hours and 8 hours soaking time. The purpose of treating fibres with alkali was to enhance the interfacial bonding between matrix and fibre surfaces. The maximum flexural strength occurred at 0.25 M NaOH solution with 1 hour of soaking time, i.e 96.71 MPa, improving by 24.41% from untreated fibre composite. But, the maximum flexural modulus took place at 0.5 M NaOH solution with 4 hours soaking time, i.e. 6948 MPa, improving by 148% from untreated composite.