Tensile properties of bagasse reinforced epoxy composites

Tensile properties of bagasse reinforced epoxy composites

Epoxy resin was filled with chopped bagasse to optimize the strength of the composite for structural applications by a research centre in the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). In order to reduce costs, the centre wishes to fill as much glass microspheres as possible subject to maintaining sufficient strength and fracture toughness of the composites in structural applications. This project varies the percentage by weight of the chopped bagasse in the composites. After casting the composites to the moulds, they were cured at ambient conditions for 24 hours. They were then post-cured in either a conventional oven or microwaves and subjected to tensile tests. It was found that the values of tensile strength and Young modulus of the composites decreased with increasing filler content. It was also found that the fractured surfaces examined under scanning electron microscope were correlated with the tensile strengths. The contribution of the study was that if tensile properties were the most important factors to be considered in the applications of the composites, bagasse is not a suitable filler. It is also hoped that the discussion and results in this work would not only contribute towards the development of glass powder reinforced epoxy composites with better material properties, but also useful for the investigations of tensile properties in other composites.

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