Feasibility Study of Processing Natural Fiber Reinforced Plastic Composite by Injection Molding

A. Khalina; Aidy Ali; H. Jalaluddin; M. Z. Hasniza; W. H. W. M. Haniffah; M. Y. Yusri; M. G. Shuriati

doi:10.3139/120.110220

Article

Feasibility Study of Processing Natural Fiber Reinforced Plastic Composite by Injection Molding

A. Khalina , Aidy Ali , H. Jalaluddin , M. Z. Hasniza , W. H. W. M. Haniffah , M. Y. Yusri and M. G. Shuriati

Published/Copyright: May 28, 2013

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From the journal Materials Testing Volume 53 Issue 4

Abstract

Plastic injection molding is a common process of producing a plastic part. However, the method of producing natural fiber reinforced plastic is yet to be explored. This paper presents the comparison between a resin part and the natural fiber reinforced composite made by the injection molding process. In this study, the composite consists of polypropylene (PP) as the resin, and Kenaf as its fiber. The composite parts and the plastic parts were tested in tensile, flexural and impact tests. The results show an improvement of the parameters obtained from the flexural and impact tests by 10.2% and 15.4%, respectively.

Kurzfassung

Das Spritzgießen ist ein allgemein bekanntes Verfahren zur Herstellung von Plastikteilen. Hingegen muss eine Methode zur Herstellung von Naturfaser-verstärkten Plastiken noch erforscht werden. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird ein Vergleich zwischen reinen Kunstharzteilen und Teilen mit Verstärkung mittels Naturfasern in Kompositwerkstoffen gezogen, wobei beide mit dem Spritzgussverfahren hergestellt wurden. In der Studie bestand der Kompositwerkstoff aus Polypropylän als Harzanteil und Kenaf als Faser. Die Kompositteile sowie die Plastikteile wurden in Zugversuchen, Biegeversuchen und Kerbschlagversuchen geprüft. Die Ergebnisse zeigen eine Verbesserung der Parameter, die in diesen versuchen geprüft wurden, um jeweils 10,2% und 15,4%.

Aidy Ali is Associate Professor for Mechnical Engineering at the University Putra Malaysia (UPM). He received his first degree in Mechanical Engineering from University Putra Malaysia, 1999, then continued studies at University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Manufacturing System Engineering, leading to the Master degree. He is working on simulating crack propagation of elastic plastic material under mixed mode loading conditions. He was awarded with a M. Eng. degree in 2002. After that, his pursued his Ph.D degree in 2003 by performing research on improving the fatigue life of aircraft components at the Sheffield University, UK. He was awarded a Ph.D degree in December 2005. His expertise is related to mechanical fatigue and fracture of metallic materials, failure assessment, failure prevention analysis, reliability engineering, and crash analysis.

A. Khalina is a lecturer for Biological and Agricultural Engineering at the University Putra Malaysia (UPM). She received his first degree in Agricultural Engineering from UPM, 1996. Also in UPM, she pursued her Ph.D degree in biocomposites technologies. She was awarded her Ph.D degree in 2005. Her expertise is related to biocomposites material, injection moulding fibre reinforced plastics composites, rheological behaviours of biocomposites materials and microstructural characterization of fibre reinforced composites.

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Published Online: 2013-05-28

Published in Print: 2011-04-01

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https://doi.org/10.3139/120.110220