Under Pressure Tensile Epoxy Composites With High Amount Of Banana Fiber

Natural fibers are attracting the interest of engineering sectors owing to specific advantages such as lightweight and lower cost as well as for their inherent condition of being renewable, biodegradable, recyclable and environmental correct material with respect to CO2 emission. The banana fiber is nowadays recognized by its mechanical properties. It is known that with the increase of fibers volume fraction the composite significant increases its tensile strength. This was obtained with amounts up to 30% in volume of banana fiber. However no higher volume of fibers was able to be molded in a composite plate until now. Thus the present work aims to study higher volumes of fiber in terms of the influence on the tensile strength of specimens prepared under 5 tons of pressure. The fibers were previously washed and dried in an oven at 60ºC, after that poured together with the epoxy resin and catalyst mixture in the metal molds bone-shaped, and pressured to ensure specimens quality. The tensile strength increased significantly with higher amounts of banana fiber incorporated in the epoxy matrix. This better performance can be directly related to the fracture obstacle imposed by the fibers as well as the type of cracks resulting from the fiber/matrix interaction.