EVALUATION OF OPTIMUM TENSILE PROPERTIES OF UKAM PLANT FIBRE REINFORCED CASHEW NUT SHELL LIQUID (CNSL) COMPOSITE.

Abstract

This study focuses on the evaluation of optimum tensile properties which include tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, modulus of resilience and modulus of toughness of ukam plant fibre reinforced cashew nut shell liquid utilizing Taguchi Robust Design. Three factors considered include fibre volume fraction, aspect ratio and fibre orientation. Minitab release 16 software and a program written in Microsoft Excel Visual Basic code windows were used for the optimization analysis. Simpsons 1/3 rule was used to solve the area under the stress-strain curve to obtain the modulus of toughness. The expected optimum tensile strength was evaluated as 21.92982MPa.The expected optimum modulus of elasticity was evaluated as 1.857519GPa. The expected optimum modulus of resilience was obtained as 113.0502x10-3 J/m3. While the expected optimum modulus of toughness was evaluated as 0.2308497J/m3.The analysis shows that fibre volume fraction is the most significant factor in the optimization of all the tensile properties of the bio composite material evaluated.