DEVELOPMENT OF BANANA PEDUNCLE FIBRE REINFORCED POLYESTER COMPOSITE FOR STRUCTURAL APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Plant-based natural fibers are presently used as reinforcement in polymer composites, replacing the expensive and non-renewable synthetic fibers such as glass for structural application. This work investigated the potentials of using waste Banana peduncle fibers (BPF) as reinforcement for polyester composites for structural applications. The composites were produced by varying the BPF from 5 to 20wt%. The density, mechanical properties and microstructure of the composite were examined. The results showed that lower weight structural components can be produced with this composite. 181.5% improvement in the tensile strength and 56.63% increases in the flexural strength were obtained over that of the unreinforced polyester. The higher values of tensile and flexural strength obtained at 20wt% addition is within the acceptable limit for outdoors application and roofing sheets production. Improvement of 40.12% was obtained for the impact energy at 20wt%. It has been established that BPF can be used to improve the mechanical properties of polyester