Journal of Research in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics ISSN: 3107-4510 (Online)

Authors: Md. Rafiquzzaman, Md. Imran Hossain, Akydur Rahman

Abstract: Natural fibers from agricultural wastes are finding their importance in the polymer industry due to the many advantages such as their light weight, low cost and being environmentally friendly. Rice straw is agricultural byproducts which is vegetative part of the rice plant and available in Bangladesh. As a type of natural fiber obtained from agricultural byproducts, rice straw can be used as filler in composites materials in various polymer matrices. In this study, an attempt has been made to fabricate rice straw fiber based polymer composite and evaluation its mechanical performances.  For this composite preparation, rice straw fibers were used as reinforcement and the epoxy resin (ADR 246 TX) was used as the matrix. The fabrication of the composite is done by using hand layup techniques. Different fiber weight % (10, 20, 30 and 40 weight %) are used to prepare the composite.  The composite thus made was tested for its mechanical properties like tensile test, flexural test, and impact test. Results showed that the tensile strength of the rice straws composites increased with increasing fibers weight fraction. The similar results were found that the flexural strength and impact strength also increased with increasing fibers weight fraction in the composites.

Keywords: Polymer composite, Rice straw fiber, Mechanical performance