Comparative Investigation on Mechanical Properties of Banana and Sisal Reinforced Polymer Based Composites

In this work, sisal fiber and banana fibers have been used as the main reinforcing materials with epoxy resin as the matrix in order to increase the effectiveness of natural fibers. It is envisaged to fabricate synthesis and study the Banana and Sisal Fiber as a reinforced material in polymer matrix composites.The natural composites were fabricated by hand layup method. The mechanical and physical properties have been studied for both the fibers by changing the orientation as uni-directional and bidirectional pattern with epoxy resin as a matrix material. Initially optimum fiber length and weight percentage were determined. The tensile, impact, flexural, water absorption tests have been performed on these fabricated composites. Morphological analysis was carried out in tensile sample composites using SEM to analyze the fracture mechanism of the both the fibers. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license