Mechanical Characterization and Water Absorption Studies on Jute/Hemp Reinforced Hybrid Composites

Abstract

The focus of current research work is to investigate the mechanical characteristic and performance of blended jute/hemp epoxy composites as compared to pure jute and hemp fibre reinforced composites. The major drawback of the natural fibre based composite is that they are hydrophilic in nature that’s why they tends to absorb the moisture. In order to protect the natural fibre based composites from this drawback, the layer of woven glass mat was placed as the outer covering one on each side of the hybrid laminate of jute-hemp. Mechanical properties such as tensile, compression, shear and flexural strength were obtained along with the water immersion test. From the experimental result, it was observed that the hybridization of glass fibre as the skin protection shows the better properties than the other composites followed by the hemp-epoxy composite. The blend of jute-hemp-epoxy composite was found to be performing better than the pure jute-epoxy composite. Test results indicates that the hybridization reinforcement of jute with the hemp and jute-hemp with the glass enhance the properties and can be considered as the potential replacement to glass fibre reinforced polymer composite in the secondary application.