Investigation of Mechanical, Thermal, and Moisture Diffusion Behavior of <i>Acacia Concinna</i> FIBER/POLYESTER Matrix Composite
Senthil Kumar Boominathan, V. Amutha, P. Senthamaraikannan, D. Vijay Kirubhakar Raj, S. Senthil Kumar, S. Sakthivel
Abstract
Acacia concinna is a climber shrub commonly found in the warm plains of central and south India, and it is an excellent herbal remedy for hair. In this investigation, fiber has been extracted from the stem portion of the Acacia concinna plant through the retting process; subsequently, the fibers were cut into 40 mm length. A part of extracted fibers were treated with 3% alkali concentration, and the remaining was kept as an untreated form. Composites were fabricated with raw and treated Acacia concinna fibers separately using a compression moudling process. During composite fabrication, five different fiber weight fraction was maintained, such as 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50%. Tensile, flexural, impact, hardness, moisture diffusion, and thermal properties were analyzed on the alkali-treated, and untreated fiber reinforced composites. The alkali-treated composite with 30% fiber weight fraction showed good tensile strength (129.38 ± 5.3 MPa), tensile modulus (1.986 GPa), flexural strength (137.31 MPa), flexural modulus (2.86 GPa), impact property (18.61 J/cm2), hardness property (95 HRRW) and water absorption characteristics (4.9%). SEM analysis confirms the improved surface of the alkali-treated composite material.