A study on mechanical behaviour of hair fiber reinforced epoxy composites

Abstract

Fiber reinforced polymer composites is an important class of structural material due to their numerous advantages. Reinforcement in polymer is either engineered or characteristic. Engineered fiber, for example, glass, carbon and so on has high particular quality however their fields of requisition are restricted because of higher expense of creation. As of late there is an increment in enthusiasm toward common composites which are made by reinforcement of characteristic fiber. Human hair has solid malleable property; thus it could be utilized as a fiber reinforcement material. It gives great property at easier expense of generation. It additionally makes ecological issue for its deteriorations because of its non-degradable properties. To this end, an attempt has been made to study the potential utilization of human hair which is economically and effortlessly found in India for making value added products. The objective of present work is to evaluate the mechanical properties of human hair reinforced epoxy composites. The impact of fiber loading and length on mechanical properties like tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength and hardness of composites is examined. Trials were directed on polymer composites with different contents of human hair fiber i.e. 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and with shifting length of human hair i.e. 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 cm. By testing of composites it has been observed that there is significant influence of human hair reinforcement on the mechanical behaviour of composites.