scholarly journals Influence of ‘Cocos Nucifera Linn’ Fiber Volume Fraction on Water Absorption and Porosity of Foamed Concrete

Global apprehension and governance on carbon footprint emissions have driven a considerable amount of research on green concrete around the world. In the present day, it should be acknowledged that most of the construction products are produced using materials that require a high amount of energy and not naturally sustainable which can lead to global problem. Hence, the use of natural fiber like Cocos Nucifera Linn Fiber (CNF) in foamed concrete is considered as a useful option in making concrete as a sustainable material to overcome this problem. CNF refer to agricultural waste or by-products that can be obtained through the distribution of coconut oil and can be accumulated in a large amount in Malaysia. Moreover, it should be understood that CNF fibers are often discarded as agricultural wastes. Hence, the aim of the present study is to perform experimental studies in order to discern the effect of CNF volume fraction on water absorption capacity and porosity of foamed concrete. There were total of 21 mixes were prepared and test in this study. Three densities of 650 kg/m3 , 1050 kg/m3 , and 1450 kg/m3 were fabricated. CNF was used as additives in the present study at 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4%, 0.5%, and 0.6% by volume fraction of the total mix. The results show that the water absorption of foamed concrete was slower at the beginning when it contained higher CNF volume fraction than the lower CNF volume fraction. CNF absorbed water and then expanded amid blending. CNF could anticipate fragility and lose microstructure arrangement, which reduces the capacity to oppose excessive loads. On the other hand, the porosity of foamed concrete is reduced due to the increase of CNF for each density examined in the present study. This occurs because of the reaction between the cement paste and CNF. Furthermore, higher density foamed concrete prompts the decrement of permeable structure, while the CNF serves to bridge the matrix. The arrangement of pores for plain foamed concrete without the incorporation of fiber was bigger compared to foamed concrete with the incorporation of CNF. CNF additionally helps in making an increasingly uniform distribution of the air voids. Thus, it will hinder bubbles from merging with one another

2019 ◽  
Vol 948 ◽  
pp. 181-185
Author(s):  
Heru Santoso Budi Rochardjo ◽  
Muhammad Ridlo

In the last decades, natural fiber composites have received much attention as important structural materials for lightweight components in automotive, and space industries because of low density, high specific strength, and environment-friendly materials. Some natural fibers, however, still not applied in more useful structure, one of which is the frond fiber of snake fruit (salacca zalacca). This fiber is usually just burned or fired as the agricultural waste. The present paper presents the result of the development of frond salacca fiber as the wear component of natural fiber reinforced phenolic. In this composite, the fiber and the phenolic are in the form of powder. The variation of fiber volume fraction was used as the main factor in the tribology characteristics of the composite. The specific wear and also the hardness is then compared to that of the existed commercially available motorbike brake pad as a comparison.


Author(s):  
Olusegun Adigun Afolabi ◽  
Krishnan Kanny ◽  
Turup Mohan

AbstractEpoxy syntactic foams (SF) filled with hollow glass microspheres (HGM) were prepared by simple resin casting method and characterization in this study. The effect of varying the amount of HGM on the specific mechanical and water absorption properties of SF composites were investigated. Five different composition of SF (SFT60-0.5 to SFT60-2.5) were compared with the neat epoxy matrix. The wall thickness of the microballoons differ because of its different percentile size distribution (10th, 50th and 90th), which reflects in its density variation. The results show that the specific tensile and flexural strength increases with an increasing filler (HGM) content. The density of SF filled with HGM reduces with increasing volume fraction of filler content. Scanning electron microscopy was done on the failed samples to examine the fractured surfaces. The water absorption capacity of the SF was also investigated as it relates to the HGM volume fraction variation. All the syntactic foam composition shows a better diffusion coefficient capacity than the neat epoxy resin. This makes it applicable in structural purposes and several marine application products such as Autonomous Ultimately Vehicle (AUV).


2017 ◽  
Vol 88 (15) ◽  
pp. 1776-1787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Habibi ◽  
Édu Ruiz ◽  
Gilbert Lebrun ◽  
Luc Laperrière

This paper presents an experimental study and modeling of the influence of surface density and fiber length on the permeability of novel nonwoven flax fiber manufactured by the paper making process. Firstly, the relation between surface density, fiber lengths and pore size distribution measured with a porometer capillary instrument is reported in this study. The results show that higher surface density gives a denser fibrous network with a low porosity rate and longer fiber decreases the total number of fibers and increases the pore size for a given surface density. A liquid permeability study was then carried out to identify the impact of surface density, short fiber length and fiber volume fraction on in-plane impregnation of the reinforcement. Permeability was found to be inversely proportional to the reinforcement of surface density. In contrast, an increase of the fiber length increases the in-plane permeability of the reinforcement. Finally, a mathematical modeling is proposed to predict the permeability behavior of these innovative natural fiber webs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (24) ◽  
pp. 3289-3297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoît Cosson

Tracking the variability of natural fiber-based fabrics properties, such as local areal weight, fiber volume fraction, and therefore permeability, is crucial to optimize the parts processing of the bio-composites. This paper aims at developing a cost-effective and efficient optical method in order to predict the permeability of flax fabrics used in liquid composite molding processes. This method using an LCD monitor as light source and a reflex camera as a measurement device is based on light transmission measurement through fabric thickness. The raw data given by the camera are gray scale maps, transformed into areal weight maps. FEM software based on levelset method is finally used to highlight the influence of the local variability of the fiber volume fraction, and of the related fabrics porosity and permeability on the mold filling time. The proposed method can be directly implemented on the manufacturing line of the composites. It can be used to optimize, part-to-part, the resin consumption by predicting the resin flow through perform. Interestingly, this novel optical method is auto-calibrated and does not depend on picture resolution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (28-30) ◽  
pp. 4003-4013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianna M Bruni-Bossio ◽  
Garrett W Melenka ◽  
Cagri Ayranci ◽  
Jason P Carey

There is an increasing demand for the use of “green”-based materials as reinforcement and matrix materials in composites. However, the ability of these natural-based materials to perform as consistently and reliably as conventional materials is still relatively unknown. A key importance in the viability of these materials is the evaluation of the content of voids and imperfections, which may affect the properties of the entire composite. In this study, the microstructure of tubular-braided composites manufactured from cellulose fibers and a partially bio-derived resin was studied with the use of micro-computed tomography. These methods were used to determine the effect of modifying braid angle, resin type, and curing method on fiber volume fraction, void volume, and void distribution. It was determined that the void content increased with the increase in braid angle, and vacuum-bagging reduced the total void content. The sample with the smallest braid angle produced with vacuum-bagged curing contained a void fraction of 1.5%. The results of this study proved that the materials used could be viable for further testing and development and that micro-computed tomography imaging is valuable for identifying how to improve consistency and minimize imperfections to create more accurate and reliable natural fiber-braided composites.


Materials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 3335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seungwon Kim ◽  
Dong Joo Kim ◽  
Sung-Wook Kim ◽  
Cheolwoo Park

Concrete has high compressive strength, but low tensile strength, bending strength, toughness, low resistance to cracking, and brittle fracture characteristics. To overcome these problems, fiber-reinforced concrete, in which the strength of concrete is improved by inserting fibers, is being used. Recently, high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCCs) have been extensively researched. The disadvantages of conventional concrete such as low tensile stress, strain capacity, and energy absorption capacity, have been overcome using HPFRCCs, but they have a weakness in that the fiber reinforcement has only 2% fiber volume fraction. In this study, slurry infiltrated fiber reinforced cementitious composites (SIFRCCs), which can maximize the fiber volume fraction (up to 8%), was developed, and an experimental study on the tensile behavior of SIFRCCs with varying fiber volume fractions (4%, 5%, and 6%) was carried out through direct tensile tests. The results showed that the specimen with high fiber volume fraction exhibited high direct tensile strength and improved brittleness. As per the results, the direct tensile strength is approximately 15.5 MPa, and the energy absorption capacity was excellent. Furthermore, the bridging effect of steel fibers induced strain hardening behavior and multiple cracks, which increased the direct tensile strength and energy absorption capacity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-284
Author(s):  
Jai Inder Preet Singh ◽  
Sehijpal Singh ◽  
Vikas Dhawan

Rising environmental concerns and depletion of petrochemical resources have resulted in an increased interest in biodegradable natural fiber-reinforced polymer composites. In this research work, jute fiber has been used as a reinforcement and polylactic acid (PLA) as the matrix material to develop jute/PLA green composites with the help of compression molding technique. The effect of fiber volume fraction ranging from 25% to 50% and curing temperature ranging from 160°C to 180°C on different samples were investigated for mechanical properties and water absorption. Results obtained from various tests indicate that with an increase in the fiber volume fraction, tensile and flexural strength increases till 30% fiber fraction, thereafter decreases with further increase in fiber content. Maximum tensile and flexural strength of jute/PLA composites was obtained with 30% fiber volume fraction at 160°C curing temperature. The trend obtained from mechanical properties is further justified through the study of surface morphology using scanning electron microscopy.


Author(s):  
G. VELMURUGAN ◽  
D. VADIVEL ◽  
R. ARRAVIND ◽  
A. MATHIAZHAGAN ◽  
S.P. VENGATESAN

This project mainly deals with analysis of tensile properties of Palmyra fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composite that is suitable for automobile application. First, the property of material was obtained on the basis of some assumptions (i.e., Rule of Mixture) and was modeled with reference to ASTM D638. Here the simulation was carried out on specimen under different fiber volume fraction and fiber length. The present work includes the Analysis of Palmyra Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites using FEA with various fiber volume fractions and these results were validated with the experimental result. The tensile property of Palmyra fiber composite material can be obtained by using tensometer.During the tensile load, the maximum strain, stress and displacement were obtained and, then this experimental result was compared with the analytical results and the error percentage of these results were calculated.


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