Flexural, Dynamic and Thermo-Mechanical Analysis of Pineapple Leaf Fiber/Epoxy Composites
Muhammad Imran Najeeb, Mohamed Thariq Hameed Sultan, Ain Umaira Md Shah, Syafiqah Nur Azrie Safri, Mohammad Jawaid, Abd Rahim Abu Talib, Adi Azriff Basri
Abstract
The properties of pineapple leaf fiber composites drawn from the vastly untapped Yankee pineapple plant variant were tested in this study. The properties of silane treated (T-PALFC) and untreated (UT-PALFC) samples were evaluated using flexural testing, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and thermomechanical analysis (TMA). In this study, the T-PALFC sample was specifically treated in silane for 3 hours. The results show that the bending strength is improved by up to 97% in PALF composite compared to epoxy composite.The DMA results show that the UT-PALFC possess 7.1% higher storage modulus than T-PALFC, indicating untreated fiber attribute to high dynamic property in composite. The TMA finding shows the sequence of linear coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) as follows: T-PALFC > Neat epoxy > UT-PALFC. Furthermore, this research shows T-PALFC displayed lower properties compared to UT-PALFC because the composite had low cross-linked network. This is because T-PALFC had low glass transition temperature, Tg as shown in tan delta curve and was further supported in differential scanning calorimetry analysis. Moreover, morphological analysis of the cross-section image of the T-PALFC shows the existence of a wide gap between the PALF and the matrix compared to UT-PALFC.