Copyright@ Kunal Mishra | Biomed J Sci & Tech Res| BJSTR. MS.ID.003418. 14861 Short Communication ISSN: 2574 -1241 Influence of Naturally Occurring Fiber (Switchgrass) Reinforcement on the Mechanical Properties of Epoxy Resin Kunal Mishra 1 * and Libin K Babu 2 1 School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, USA 2 Department of Integrated Engineering, USA *Corresponding author: Kunal Mishra, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Tulsa, USA DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2019.20.003418 Introduction In the present era, lightweight composites are in great demand in various applications such as automobile, aerospace, as well as in recreational industries to enhance the efficiency and performance. Conventional carbon-based fillers including carbon nanotube [1,2], graphene [3], POSS [4-6] shows modification in epoxy-based composites, however, these fillers are expensive and hazardous to the environment. Recently, researchers are modifying composites using naturally occurring biodegradable materials such as jute or flax [7-12]. However, the cost of these materials is high thereby limiting the supply of these materials. In contrast, switchgrass (SG) is a self-seeding crop that can grow on small lands and also it requires low-input in terms of water and fertilizer to grow [13,14]. The advantage of using SG include less production costs and development of environmentally friendly products. There are only few studies where composites are reinforced with SG or where SG was used as a filler to enhance the properties of polypropylene [15]. The objective of this study is to employ untreated SG as a reinforcement in epoxy composites and to study its influence on the mechanical properties. Experimental Materials SG was obtained from a research field at the University of Tulsa Campus. SG stems were manually separated from the mature crops. The stem was cut in the size between 2-5 cm. The tensile properties of regular SG is given below: Tensile strength: 105 ± 21.2 MPa Tensile modulus: 17.2 ± 2.6 GPa EPON 828, a diglycidyl ether bisphenol A based resin, and EPIKURE 3115, a polyamide based, curing agent was procured from Hexion (Houston, TX, USA). Fabrication Mixing of epoxy resin and SG were carried out in a magnetic stirrer at 50°C at 200 rpm for 12 hr. The mixture was then cooled to room temperature and stoichiometric amount of amine-based curing agent (by 120% wt. of epoxy) was added followed by mixing for an additional 10 min. The mixture was then placed in Received: July 25, 2019 Published: August 01, 2019 Citation: Kunal Mishra, Libin K Babu. Influence of Naturally Occurring Fiber (Switchgrass) Reinforcement on the Mechanical Properties of Epoxy Resin. Biomed J Sci & Tech Res 20(2)-2019. BJSTR. MS.ID.003418. ARTICLE INFO Abstract In this present study, the natural occurring switchgrass (SG) is used as a reinforcement in the epoxy resin. The obtained SG is cut into small sizes with dimension ranging between 2 and 5 cm and without any chemical treatment is directly reinforced in epoxy resin at different weight fractions, to prepare lightweight composites. The SG-epoxy composites show 50% and 28.5% increase in tensile modulus and strength respectively. These modified properties of SG-epoxy composites have the potential for further use as a structural composite.