Experimental investigation of mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties of sansevieria roxburghiana /epoxy composite using Taguchi design

Abstract

The focus of this research was to study how process parameters including fibre alignment, fibre length, fibre volume percentage and alkali pretreatment affected the mechanical and dynamic mechanical characteristics (DMA) of the sansevieria fibre composite. The nonwoven fabric was produced through the needle punching technique. 18 composite samples have been produced according to L18 Taguchi design. Four different process parameters were considered for investigation, such as fibre length, fibre volume fraction, the concentration of alkali and fibre alignment. Using Design S/N ratio analysis, the optimized process parameters for achieving maximum tensile, flexural and compression properties of the composite were measured. In the case of DMA analysis, three different parameters have been calculated only for selected samples such as storage modulus, loss modulus and loss factor. Variance analyses were carried out to measure the statistical influence of the process parameters on response. After this, validation of experiments was also done. SEM study was also carried out to understand the damage pattern of the composite sample.