© STM Journals 2025. All Rights Reserved S139 ISSN: 2321-2810 (Online) ISSN: 2321-8525 (Print) Volume 13, Special Issue 2, 2025 DOI (Journal): 10.37591/JoPC STM JOURNALS Journal of Polymer & Composites https://journals.stmjournals.com/jopc Research JoPC Enhancing Performance of Hybrid Natural Fiber Reinforced Polymer: Insights into Processing, Characterization and Machining Vivek Sheel Rajput 1 , Mohinder Pal Garg 2 , Sarbjit Singh 3, * Abstract Natural fibre reinforced polymer composites (N-FRP) have gained popularity in recent years as an alternative to regular polymer composites, owing to growing environmental concerns. Natural fibers are becoming increasingly popular due to their outstanding properties such as flexibility, strength, compatibility with living creatures, and impact resistance. A notable application of natural fibers is in the medical industry, with the goal of producing cost-effective, sustainable, and long-lasting products. Combining different fibers in the matrix can improve a material's mechanical characteristics in a hybrid method where one type of fibre can compensate for the deficiencies of another. Since the volume of fibers greatly affect the mechanical characteristics of hybrid composite materials, our present study is to investigate the effect of volume fraction of jute and sisal fibers on tensile strength of hybrid composite followed by machining using rotary electrochemical discharge-based machining (R-ECDM) process. The holes are fabricated at different electrolyte concentration and rotation of the tool. The hole overcut (HOC), Circularity error (CE) and surface roughness (SR) of the machined hole is analyzed to study the impact of input process parameter. ECDM applies the principle of thermal heating and chemical etching to remove the material and effectively applied for non-conductive brittle materials. The article’s originality lies in the combined characterization study of hybridized N-FRP and its machining using R- ECDM. The tensile strength of composites improves as the volume of fibers increases due to the influence of individual fibre strengths. The proposed machining method is analyzed for machinability study of the N-FRP hybrid composites. The rotational effect improves the HOC, CE and surface roughness of the machined hole due to enhanced circulation of the electrolyte. The input parameters significantly affect the input parameters since all response parameters increases with the increase of electrolyte concentration and at higher level of tool rotation. Keywords: Natural fibers, hybrid composite, volume fraction, ECDM, sparks, surface roughness INTRODUCTION Composite materials are made up of two or more components that have diverse properties at the microscopic and macroscopic levels. Straw bricks were employed in architecture as early as 10,000 B.C., while laminated composites from the papyrus plant were utilized as writing material in 4,000 B.C. The Mangolas created contemporary composite bows out of flexible materials including cattle tendons, wood, and silk around 1,200 B.C [1]. These materials surpass traditional materials in terms of fatigue life, energy dissipation, corrosion resistance, and cost-effectiveness. Polymer composites comprising high-strength fibers such as glass, carbon etc. are becoming increasingly used in *Author for Correspondence Sarbjit Singh 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, Punjab, India 2 Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, Punjab, India 3 Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, Punjab, India Received Date: June 09, 2024 Accepted Date: October 10, 2024 Published Date: January 23, 2025 Citation: Vivek Sheel Rajput, Mohinder Pal Garg, Sarbjit Singh. Enhancing Performance of Hybrid Natural Fiber Reinforced Polymer: Insights into Processing, Characterization and Machining. Journal of Polymer & Composites. 2025; 13(Special Issue 2): S139–S153p.