CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 63, 2018 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors: Jeng Shiun Lim, Wai Shin Ho, Jiří J. Klemeš Copyright © 2018, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l. I SBN 978-88-95608-61-7; I SSN 2283-9216 Tensile Properties of Jute-Polypropylene Composites Siti Nadia Mohd Bakhori a , Mohamad Zaki Hassan a, *, Sa’ardin Abdul Aziz a ,Siti Hajar Sheikh Md. Fadzulah b , Fauzan Ahmad c a UTM Razak School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra,54100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. b Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia, Hang Tuah Jaya, 76100 Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia. c Malaysian-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra,54100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. mzaki.kl@utm.my This paper describes the tensile behaviour of jute-polypropylene fibre composites with different fibre volume fractions. Here, the composite laminates consisting of weaving jute fibres, with the fibre volume percent in the range of 20 to 80 % and polypropylene plies were prepared using hand lamination. The composite laminates were subjected to tensile testing as per ASTM D3039. The experimental results suggested that fibre-to-resin contents have a strong influence on the tensile properties of the composites. There is an increase in the tensile strength and Young’s Modulus of the composites with increasing fibre volume fraction. However, upon reaching 60 % of the fibre contents, the tensile properties of the laminate showed a sudden decrease due to stress concentration of the fibre in the laminates. Theoretical models including Rule of Mixture, Halpin-Tsai, Hirsch, and Einstein-Guth models were used to predict the tensile strength of the composites. It was found that the experimental result attained is in close agreement with the values predicted using the rule of mixture model. 1. Introduction Composites materials are very trendy to be used in structural components. Previous studies proved that mechanical properties of natural fibre reinforced polymer composites are excellent and can be utilized in high- tech applications (Rana et al., 1998). One of the major drawback of natural fibre/polymer laminate is poor adhesion between the hydrophilic natural fibre and hydrophobic polymeric resin. Here, the presence of chemical constituents such as cellulose, lignin, hemicellulose and wax substances in natural fibre prevent them from firmly binding with the polymer resin (Pickering et al., 2016). Hence, an alkaline treatment using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was introduced to improve the bonding between the matrix and the fibre, by removing the hydrogen bonding of the fibre cellulose (Lee et al., 2009). Interestingly, a study by Bledzki (2008) on the effect of acetylation on the mechanical properties of flax/polypropylene composites found that the treated fibre yield in a decrease in the mechanical properties of the composites, due to degradation of cellulose and fibre cracking (Bledzki et al., 2008). Apart from the hydrophilic of the natural fibre, the effect of fibre content on the composite laminate is undoubtedly significant. Among the factors that can influence the mechanical properties of the composites include fibre orientation, fibre length and weight ratio of the fibre. Several researchers have investigated the influence of fibre loading on the mechanical behaviour of natural fibre composites (Keck and Fulland, 2016). These studies concluded that the tensile strength and Young’s Modulus increase up to 50 % with increasing fibre loading. In contrast, Mustapha et al (2015) reported that the effect of volume fractions on grass straw reinforced earth-based matrix offered significantly higher stiffness and strength of the composite structure with some limitations. They suggested that when the fibre content reaches an optimum value, the strength of the structure degraded due to high concentration of the fibre. This study aims to characterize the mechanical behaviour of jute fibre-reinforced polypropylene laminate following tensile test. Following this, the results from analytical models using the Rules of Mixture, Halpin-Tsai’s, Hirsch’s and Einstein & Guth models are compared with the experimental findings. DOI: 10.3303/CET1863122 Please cite this article as: Siti Nadia Mohd Bakhori, Mohamad Zaki Hassan, Sa’ardin Abdul Aziz, Siti Hajar Sheikh Md. Fadzulah, Fauzan Ahmad, 2018, Tensile properties of jute-polypropylene composites, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 63, 727-732 DOI:10.3303/CET1863122 727