Evaluation of Acoustic and Structural Behavior of Banana Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites

Abstract

In recent times, there has been a growing interest in the production of environmentally friendly materials. One area of focus is the use of polymer composites reinforced with natural fibres to replace synthetic fibres that are commonly used in structural applications. The study utilised compression moulding to create six different combinations of banana/epoxy composites. This was achieved by varying the weight fraction and length of the banana fibres used. Initially, the banana fibres were cut into chips of varying lengths—10 mm, 20 mm and 30 mm. The composition of fibre reinforcement was then altered using two different weight fractions—5% and 10%. The study aimed to investigate the effect of fibre composition and fibre length on the properties of composites by performing tensile, flexural, and acoustic tests. The tensile test results showed that the composite fabricated with 20 mm fibre length and 10% fibre composition had the highest load-bearing capacity and showed higher resistance to tensile loading. On the other hand, the three-point bending test results revealed that the composite fabricated with 5% fibre composition and 30 mm fibre length had the highest flexural load-bearing capacity. The specimens that were fractured during mechanical testing were analysed using scanning electron microscopy to understand their failure mechanisms. The impedance tube method was employed to study the influence of fibre length and volume content on the acoustic behaviour of the banana/epoxy composite. The acoustic results demonstrated that the composite fabricated with 5% fibre composition and 10 mm fibre length had the highest sound absorption coefficient value (α = 0.997), which indicates good sound insulation properties.