Mechanical Characterization And Comparative Study On Polyester Composite Laminates Reinforced With Different Bio Waste Materials

The composites are the promising materials of this century, amongst that different types of polymeric matrix reinforced with different materials found application in many of the service industries. In most of the cases the reinforcement is fiber, which has to be prepared and processed to convert it in to suitable form which involves time and money. Asian countries being the large agricultural producers, there are large amount of bio waste materials easily available as agricultural residuals. The main aim of this work is to find the possibility of using those waste materials as reinforcement in polymeric composites. The attractive features of these biowaste materials are their low cost, renewability, and biodegradability. In this work, the polyester matrix is reinforced with bio-waste materials like tamarind seed powder, groundnut shell powder, and rice husk. Composite laminates are prepared with these three types of reinforcement and their mechanical properties like tensile, flexural, impact strength and hardness are tested as per ASTM standard and a comparative study is illustrated. The results show that groundnut shell powder reinforced polyester is having good tensile and flexural strength whereas tamarind seed powder reinforced polyester is having high impact strength and hardness.