International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169 Volume: 5 Issue: 7 575 – 580 _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 575 IJRITCC | July 2017, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org _______________________________________________________________________________________ Study on Physical and Thermal Characteristic of Natural Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites Dr. Ramesh Chandra Mohapatra Reader&HOD Mechanical Department Government College of Engineering, Keonjhar, Orissa, India E mail-id rameshmohapatra75@gmail.com Abstract: In the present work, thermal conductivity of pine wood dust (150μm mesh size) filled epoxy composites have been studied experimentally & empirically. The thermal conductivity values of PWD filled epoxy composites were calculated experimentally using guarded heat flow meter method in accordance with ASTME-1530 standard. The effects of density and filler content on the thermal conductivity of composite products were investigated and found that thermal conductivity values increases in a linear manner with density and decreases in non- linear manner with filler (PWD) content. An empirical investigation for describing thermal conductivity of PWD filled epoxy composite was compared with the experimental results and has a good agreement with it. It was also compared with other empirical equations for predicting thermal conductivity values of wood and found that thermal conductivity values obtained from empirical investigation consistently has lower values than other empirical equations. It is found that the composite density values calculated theoretically are not equal to the experimentally measured values. This difference is a measure of voids and pores present in the composites. It is also found that with the increase in filler (PWD) content from 0 vol% to 35.9 vol%, the theoretical as well as measured densities decreases by about 22%. Keywords: Thermal conductivity, Epoxy, Pine wood dust, Natural fibre composites, Guarded heat flow meter, Empirical. __________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________ 1. Introduction Natural fiber reinforced polymer composites are hybrid with their properties, with characteristics of both natural fibres and polymers. Incorporation of natural fibers in to polymer is now a standard technology to improve the insulating and mechanical properties of polymer. The fibres resulting from wood, animals, leaves, grasses and other natural sources are commonly used as reinforcement in composites used for various applications, like automotive (interior and exterior), building, ship, packaging etc., due to their unusual properties compared to other synthetic fibres. Advances in manufacturing techniques in natural fibre- reinforced composites have allowed the car industry to utilize these composites in interior trimmings. Besides the environmental benefits, compared to glass fibre composites, the natural fibre reinforced composites with the equivalent performances have higher fibre content, resulting in less pollution from synthetic polymer matrix and much lighter weight, reducing the amount of driving fuel in automotive applications. The improvement of the insulating properties of composites can be determined by measuring their thermal properties i.e. the values of thermal conductivity. Generally thermal conductivity is a property which has ability to conduct heat of materials. It plays an important role in determining their heat conduction/insulation capability. Some studies have investigated the thermal conductivity of wood based composites, but few have explored the thermal conductivity of natural fibre and thermoplastic composites. Russell[1]and Maxwell[4] theoretical models have been widely applied for predicting thermal conductivity of multi- phase composites. Maclean[2], Kollman[3],Wikes[6], Tenwolde et al.[8] and Kamke[9] reviewed the empirical equations for predicting the thermal conductivity of wood and wood based panel products. Steinhagen[5] reviewed the thermal conductivity of wood from -40 0 C to 100 0 C and found that the thermal conductivity of wood increases in a linear manner with temperature and density. He also found little difference between its value in tangential and radial directions. Siau[7] reported thermal conductivity in longitudinal direction to be 2.5 times greater than the transverse direction. Suleiman et al. [10] investigated the thermal conductivity of wood in both longitudinal and transverse direction in the temperature range of 20-100 0 C. Their results showed that thermal conductivity was about 1.5 times more in the longitudinal direction than in transverse direction due to non-homogenous nature of wood. Liu et al.[11] concluded that 0.185 (W/m-K) is a suitable value in the transverse direction for the cell wall thermal conductivity of Manila hemp fibre based on theoretical and finite element methods. Mohapatra et al.[12] found that the thermal conductivity of pine wood dust-filled epoxy composites decreased as filler content increased. The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of density on the thermal conductivity of pine wood dust filled epoxy composites with varying proportions of pine wood dust filler. An empirical equation was fitted for describing the thermal conductivity of these composites and was compared with other empirical equations derived for wood based materials and theoretical models for multi-phase mater 2. Theoretical Investigations The composite is usually prepared based on calculation of weight fractions or volume fractions. In this research volume fraction was taken into consideration. The density of the composite is found out by rule of mixtures. As per rule of mixtures, the density of the composite is obtained by ] 1 [ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... f f m m c v v      Where ρ c = Density of the composite, ρ m = Density of the matrix, ρ f = Density of the filler.