Jute PR
Jute PR
Jute PR
Volume 11, Issue 2, February 2020, pp. 130-140, Article ID: IJMET_11_02_012
Available online at https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJMET?Volume=11&Issue=2
ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.34218/IJMET.11.2.2020.012
© IAEME Publication
ABSTRACT
Now a days traditional metallic and alloy material are replaced with the fiber
based composite material in numerous engineering application. The effect of stacking
sequence on tensile and flexural properties of epoxy-based carbon and jute fiber
composites has been investigated experimentally and numerically in this paper. Six
layers of woven unidirectional jute fiber and four-layer of carbon fiber has been
fabricated by vacuum assisted resin infusion process with five different stacking
sequences. The tensile and water absorption behaviors of the prepared composite
samples were experimentally studied as per the standard of ASTM. The obtained
results from the experiments revealed that the stacking sequence of the fiber has a
great effect on the tensile and water absorption properties of the composite. To
validate the experimental result of the tensile test, the exact 3 D model of the
composite laminates were imported to a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software with
the exact experimental condition. The predicted FEA results were compared with the
experimental results and a good similarity between them has been observed.
Keywords: Stacking sequences, Hybrid laminates, Jute fiber, Carbon fiber,
Mechanical properties, Finite element analysis.
Cite this Article: Abu Shaid Sujon, Nagib Mehfuz, Mohammad Ahsan Habib,
Experimental and Numerical Investigation on the Tensile and Water Absorption
Behavior of Jute/Carbon Reinforced Epoxy Composite. International Journal of
Mechanical Engineering and Technology 11(2), 2020, pp. 130-140.
https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJMET?Volume=11&Issue=2
1. INTRODUCTION
Environmental regulation, along with the consumer demand for the eco-friendly and
recyclable material a trend has been observed in using natural fibers as a replacement for non-
recyclable synthetic fibers like glass, Kevlar and carbon fiber [1].Due to their enhanced and
superior characteristics than their respective individual fiber component, there has been an
increased focus in hybrid composite material in recent years[2], [3]. Hybrid composites are
manufactured with the help of a matrix by mixing two or more distinct strengthening material.
In this way, a new composite material with high mechanical properties is manufactured[4].
Carbon fiber, because of its inferior features like strong mechanical strength, elasticity, low
density, and excellent fire resistance, is widely used as reinforcement materials [5]. Due to
these reasons, in many areas of engineering technology, as for example automotive industry,
aviation industry, ship building industry, construction, and sporting equipment, it makes
carbon fiber irreplaceable. However, because of the brittleness of carbon fibers, carbon fiber
composites are more likely to be affected by the stress-concentration in real-life application
[6].
Furthermore, the manufacturing of carbon fiber is expensive. The only way to increase the
strength of CFRPs is for some layers of carbon fiber to be replaced by ductile fibers. This is
known as hybridization that can contribute and therefore produce good material which is cost-
effective and eco-friendly. In a hybrid composite laminate, Park and Jang [6] integrated
plastic fiber polyethylene (PE) to create a hybrid composite laminate. Due to its high
elongation at break and high specific strength and rigidity, they used PE fiber. They found
that, when the carbon fiber was placed at the outer layer, the hybrid composite demonstrated
the greatest flexural strength.
Natural fibers are generally treated with physical and chemical solutions to improve
interaction with thermoplastic or thermoset matrices to eliminate mineral, pectin, and waxes
to create robust bonding, which gives better mechanical properties [7]. However, weak
binding is also helpful to enable debonding and fiber pull-out, which is difficult in composite
laminate processes [8]. From the literature review, it has been found out that the treatment of
natural fibers may also significantly reduce the mechanical characteristics [9] of composites
as well as lower the damping magnitude [10]. Hence, the fibers used for this research were
not further treated, and the fibers were used as they were fabricated.
A significant number of researchers have concentrated on hybrid composites comprising
of organic fiber (flax, jute, sisal) and synthetic fibers (carbon and glass) to reduce the price
and weight of composite laminates as well as to increase impact and damage resistance [11]–
[13]]. Ramesh [14] produced composites reinforced with sisal/glass and jute/glass and
evaluated their tensile strength and flexural strength. They study composites with sisal fibers
that have higher tensile strength than composites with jute fibers, while both have less
strength than glass composites. Dhakal [1] evaluated the thermal stability, tensile, and flexural
characteristics of composites made of carbon, flax, and flax/carbon. Results showed that
mixed flax/carbon fiber composites had an improvement in elongation at break relative to
plain carbon composites. But, due to their inherently lower strength, the addition of flax fibers
reduced the flexural strength of carbon composites. In recent time, several researchers
explored the impact of fiber stacking sequences on mechanical properties of composites
material. Velu and Srinivasan [15] intended to determine the weight and mechanical
characteristics of the jute (J)/glass (G) composites (JJGG, JGJG, GGJJ) using distinct lay-up
configurations. They reported that when the stacking sequence was GGJJ, tensile and flexural
strength was the highest. Gujjala [16] designed and examined four different types of jute/glass
composites. Their findings showed that the combination of JGJG and GJJG had the greatest
flexural and tensile strength, respectively. Zhang [17] examined the impact of stacking
sequence on the tensile property of glass (G)/flax (F) composite. Their stacking sequences
were [GF] s, [GGFF] s, and [GGGGFFFF] s. Owing to more contact and distinct phases
between flax and glass layers, [GF]s laminate had the maximum tensile resistance and failure
strain.
It can be noticed that previous researchers have found that carbon-jute hybrid composites
can replace carbon fiber rein- forced polymer (CFRP) composites without significant loss in
mechanical properties and with improved damping properties.
Jute fiber is one of the most promising materials for the production of Hybrid composite
in recent years. Jute fiber is an outstanding fiber that can be hybridized with synthetic fibers
such as carbon, glass, or aramid to generate a composite material with desirable impact
characteristics for a wide range of applications. Jute fiber is an organic fiber which has good
strength, eco-friendly, inexpensive, recognized for their damping properties as well as
possessing moderate impact resistance over other natural fibers. Synthetic fiber, such as
carbon fibers, could be used for hybridization to further improve the tensile, flexural, and
impact properties of jute fibers.
In this work, interplay hybrid composites were prepared with jute fiber and carbon fiber as
reinforcement and epoxy resin as a matrix. The objective of this study was to investigate the
effect of different stacking sequences of fiber layers on the overall mechanical properties of
the hybrid composite.
Vacuum-assisted resin infusion process in short VARI was used to fabricate the hybrid
composite laminates. This process is widely accepted by the researcher as the produced
composites have better mechanical properties in terms of strength, less void formation, and
famous for manufacturing complicated structures compared to hand layup process. VARI
process comprises of five steps (a) preparation of the mold and stacking of the fabric material;
(b) mold sealing and vacuum creation; (c) epoxy resin preparation and degassing; (d)
impregnation of resin and (e) curing of fabricated panels. Six (6) piles of jute and four (4)
piles of carbon fiber have been used to assess the effect of stacking sequence on the tensile
and flexural properties of composite material. In Fig. 2 a view of the experimental setup has
been given.
The number of jute and carbon fiber layer was kept constant to determine the impact of
the stacking sequence of the hybrid composites. After stacking the piles of jute and carbon
fiber peel ply, infusion mesh and vacuum bagging film are used sequentially along with the
sealant tape around the sample to facilitate the vacuum infusion process. Then the matrix was
feed by the spiral pipe to the mold to start the infusion process. It took about 25-30 minutes to
complete the infusion process. The vacuum chamber pressure was kept at -1.00 bar during
the infusion process. The vacuum pump was supplied by the Easy Composite (ECVP425)
from the United Kingdom. When the infusion process was done after that, the
composites have been cured for 24 hours at room temperature. There was a total of 48.6%
fiber content by weight in the entire sample. The percentage of jute fiber was 73 % (w/w) and
carbon fiber 27 %(w/w) Fig. 3 shows the five (5) different stacking sequences that have been
used in this experiment.
3. MECHANICAL TEST
3.1. Tensile Test
Tensile specimens were prepared following ASTM D3039[18]. The dimension of the
specimen has been illustrated in. The overall thickness was observed for all the composite was
6.8 mm with a variation of 0.2 mmm and the gage length was 100 mm while testing the
sample. The material was loaded in the universal testing machine then the load was applied at
an increasing rate of 5mm/min, until the breakage of the material has taken place. The load at
this point is used to calculate the maximum tensile strength of the composite material. The
experiment was repeated for five samples and the average values are used for the detailed
analysis.
Where 𝑚1 is the weight before submerging in water (g) and 𝑚2 is the weight after
submerging in water (g). The percentage weight gain of the samples was measured at different
time intervals and the moisture content versus square root of time was plotted.
Figure 4 Influence of stacking patterns on Tensile strength of the hybrid jute/carbon laminates
It is also found that there is a sharp increase in the tensile strength (Fig 4) with the
incorporation of jute fiber as core of the hybrid composite. The increase in the tensile strength
is attributed to the reason that carbon fibers are stronger and stiffer than jute fiber.
Hybridization of carbon fiber has provided the hybrid material much stiffer, stronger
properties over its natural fiber counter parts, showing that the hybridization of carbon and
jute can result in a material with significantly improved mechanical properties.
Numerical Numerical
500
400
400
300
300
200
200
100 100
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Strain % Strain %
600 600
(d) Experimental
(c) Experimental
500 500 Numerical
Tensile Stress (MPa)
Numerical
400 400
300 300
200 200
100 100
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Strain % Strain %
600
Numerical
400
300
200
100
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Strain %
Figure 5 Experimental and FEA model of tensile stress vs strain (a) S1=C2J3C2J3, (b)S2=C2J6C2,
(c)S3=C4J6,(d) S4=J2C2J2C2J2,(e)S5=J3C4J3.
Figure 6 Total deformation after the under the tensile load (a) S1=C2J3C2J3, (b)S2=C2J6C2, (c)=
S3=C4J6,(d)= S4=J2C2J2C2J2,(e)= S5=J3C4J3.
7 7
C2J3C2J3 (S1)
6 6
C2J6C2 (S2)
C4J6(S3)
% of Water Absorption
5 5
J2C2J2C2J2 (S4)
J3C4J3 (S5)
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
5. CONCLUSION
This experimental work was carried out to study the influences of layering patterns on the
tensile and water absorption responses of jute/carbon fiber-based epoxy composites and the
results were validated numerically for tensile specimen.
• Experimental results revealed that stacking sequence of the fiber layers have a
significant influence on the mechanical properties of the composite material.
• The maximum amount of tensile strength was found for S1 sample which was 571
MPa and minimum amount of tensile strength was found for S5 (496 MPa).
• Numerical validations for the fabricated composites were performed by finite element
analysis and closer rationality were observed between the results. The slighter
deviation in the properties is due to the assumption that no void formation and proper
bonding of fiber/matrix during FEA simulation of the composites.
• The combination (C2J6C2) would be suitable for critical applications which require
high tensile strength and less water absorption property.
• The present experimental investigation of the jute/carbon epoxy composite fabrication leads to less
weight and low-cost composite fabrication with reduced environmental impacts by
lowering the carbon foot prints.
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