Hybrid Thermosetting Composite of Kenaf/Banana Fibres for Utilisation in a Passenger Car Bumper

Abstract

Due to the high performance material requirement for automotive application and impact sensitivity of car bumper as one of the main car parts used as protection for passengers from collision and the safety requirement of the material to improve crashworthiness during low impact collision was the essence of composite material hybridisation. Thermosetting hybrid kenaf/banana composites were fabricated after chemical modification of fibres. hand-lay up contact molding techniques were used for material fabrication. Fibre loading were set at 50% weight of the matrix with the hybrid materials at 1:1 ratio of short non-woven randomly oriented fibres, The catalyst and accelerator was added 2-3% by weight of the matrix.  Hybrid material were hand-laid in the mold and the matrix were gradually applied to the fibre network in the precision, coverage and dimension of the mold. The fabricated materials were left to cure at ambient temperature for 24hrs. The tensile and flexural tests were carried out using Testometric testing machine, Model M500-25KN. In accordance to ASTM D638-90 and ASTM D790-90 respectively. The results showed improved mechanical properties for hybrid kenaf/banana composite than composite of kenaf and banana fibres reinforcement. Hybrid kenaf/banana composite (HK/B-C) at 50% fibre optimum loading shows improvement on mechanical properties of the composite than that of kenaf composite (K-C) and banana composite (B-C) respectively . Hybrid materials are being developed and design aiming to improve mechanical behaviour and application performance polymeric materials.