Physical, Mechanical, Thermal and Morphological Properties of Nipah (Nypa Fruticans) Palm Fibre Reinforced Unsaturated Polyester Composites

• Main Author: Tracy, Dickie
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) 2020
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/32196/3/Tracy.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/32196/

The physical, chemical, thermal, crystalline, surface morphology, tensile, water absorption of untreated and alkali treated nipah (nypa fruticans) palm fibre were investigated in this work. There were two types of fibres extracted from the fronds, Fibre A and Fibre B, with 0.530 mm and 0.039 mm diameter respectively. The untreated and alkali treated nipah palm fibre were studied for its behaviour towards Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). Hand lay-up and cold press method were used to fabricate nipah palm composite. The highest composite strength and Young’s modulus for Fibre A were at 29.36 MPa and 471 MPa respectively. For Fibre B composites, the highest strength was at 29.67 MPa and 102 MPa for its Young’s modulus. The results of water absorption test showed better absorption resistance of treated fibre towards water. Future work direction of this investigation is to use vacuum bagging method to fabricate the composite and to use different types of polymer matrix.