Fabrication and Characterization of Luffa Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite and Development of Experimental Set-up for Thermal Free Vibration

Abstract

In the present investigation, the luffa fiber reinforced epoxy composite plate has been fabricated using the hand layup composite fabrication method. For the composite fabrication, first of all the luffa fiber has been collected from local sources and prepared for fabrication by giving the chemical treatment. Further, four set of composite has been fabricated by varying the fiber weight fraction. The tensile test has been conducted to evaluate the Young modulus using Universal Testing Machine. In addition, the three-point bend test is performed to analyse the deflection behavior using three-point bend test machine. The experimental responses for different set of composite is present and discussed in detail. In addition, a fully automated thermal chamber has also been developed for providing the thermal treatment to the composite structure.