Experimental Study on Mechanical Behaviour of Reinforced Composite for Automotive Interior Panel applications

Natural fibres are widely used in automotive industries, as they offer many technical and eco-friendly benefits like light weight, biodegradable, good mechanical properties, and low cost. The main objective of this research is to investigate the mechanical properties of natural fibers such as Rice straw, Bagasse, and Sorghum. The natural fiber test results were observed from tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength and water absorption. Further to obtain uniform composite board with an increase in number of bonding points, Polypropylene fibers were used along with epoxy resin. The experimental work carried out the various composition of bagasse from 10% to 40% with Polypropylene. The composites were made using compression moulding machine with a curing temperature of 120˚C. The mechanical properties of three samples of each composition were compared. The observed static properties are flexural strength 22.16 Mpa, impact strength 1.64 KJ/m<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>, and tensile strength 6.67 Mpa. The reinforcement evident that 33% of enhanced flexural strength compared to the natural fiber. This experimental work concludes that reinforced fiber matrix most influenced factors to increase the impact and flexural strength, which is predominant in the automotive industries.