2011 Volume 5 Issue 12 Pages 945-955
In this study, the jute fiber and glass fiber were used as reinforcements in polypropylene (PP) to fabricate the jute/PP and glass/PP pellets by the long fiber pellet technique. Those two long fiber pellets were used to mold both dispersed and sandwich dumbbell specimens by injection molding. The effects of jute/glass fiber hybridization and sandwich structure on mechanical properties of the hybrid composites were investigated related to “Green degree”. When adding about 12.5 wt. % of glass fiber into natural fiber composite as in hybrid dispersed composite, the mechanical properties as comparing with jute/PP composite were significantly improved due to the high mechanical properties of the added glass fiber. Moreover, the glass fiber hybridization also improved the better fiber orientation and distribution of jute fiber based on the SEM observation on the fracture surface after tensile test. Regarding natural fiber sandwich structure, the jute/PP core sandwich composite with relative higher jute fiber content shows higher tensile modulus than the jute/PP skin sandwich composite but a decreased bending modulus conversely. The addition of glass fiber in the core layer or skin layer can significantly improve both tensile and bending modulus of sandwich composite comparable to the jute/PP composite and dispersed jute/glass fiber hybrid composite. Moreover, it can be seen that the hybrid core layer sandwich composite shows higher tensile and bending strength than the hybrid skin layer sandwich composite. In a word, with appropriate designed sandwich structure in both core and skin layers, jute/glass fiber hybrid composite with higher green degree and desired mechanical properties can be achieved.
