A Study on the Effect of Chemical Treatment on the Mechanical Behavior of Bamboo-Glass Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Based Hybrid Composites

Abstract

Fiber reinforced polymer composites have a wide variety of applications as a class of structural materials because of their advantages such as ease of fabrication, relatively low cost of production & superior strength as compared to neat polymer resins. The fiber which serves as a reinforcement in polymers may be either synthetic or natural. Although synthetic fibers such as glass, carbon etc. possess high specific strength, their field of applications are limited because of their higher costs of production. Recently, there is an increasing interest in hybrid composites that are made by reinforcement of two or more different types of fibers in a single matrix, because these materials attain a range of properties that cannot be obtained with a particular kind of reinforcement. Further, material costs can be reduced by careful selection of reinforcing fibers. Currently, the chemical treatments of the fibers are carried out as they further enhance the properties of the composites. In this connection, an investigation has been carried out to make potential utilization of bamboo fiber as reinforcement with glass fiber which is very cheap and is easily available in India. The objective of the present research work is to study the effect of chemical treatments on the mechanical properties of glass/bamboo fiber reinforced epoxy based hybrid composites.