Measurment of electrical conductivity of natural fiber composite

Abstract

Since recent few decades natural fiber composites have been gaining more and more importance and attention over synthetic fibers on account of their various advantages and applications. An appropriate electrical application of natural fiber composites depends on the electrical conductivity of the composite known very well. Also electrical conductivity due to moisture absorption of natural fiber plastic composites is one major concern in their outdoor applications. Dry natural fiber composite has no measurable electrical conductivity. After absorbing moisture from atmosphere or any other means natural fibers impart electrical conductivity to composites which is undesirable even though it is very low. This conductivity increases with the amount of fiber loading and not depends on the orientation of fiber in matrix. A proper setup is made to measure electrical conductivity of natural fiber composite sample at different fiber loading which gives the conductivity values in close proximity to the earlier made approaches to find electrical conductivities with different samples and compare the values obtained to get a graph showing that after percolation threshold value the conductivity of natural fiber composite increases with increase in fiber loading.