Development and characterization of sisal and jute cellulose reinforced polymer composite M. Arun ⇑ , S. Vincent, R. Karthikeyan Department of Mechanical Engineering, BITS Pilani Dubai, Dubai, PB 345055, United Arab Emirates article info Article history: Received 31 August 2019 Received in revised form 17 December 2019 Accepted 23 December 2019 Available online xxxx Keywords: NFRP CRPC Epoxy Fiber Cellulose Composite abstract The global demand of sustainable and biodegradable materials has led to the development of Natural Fiber Reinforced Polymer (NFRP) composite. The development of NFRP composites has been an interest- ing area of research because of its attractive properties such as high strength to weight ratio, excellent corrosion resistance and biodegradability. Several natural fibers such as jute, sisal, flax and hemp has been used as a reinforcement material with the polymer to form the NFRP composites. Cellulose, which is the basic structural element of all fibers, possesses higher strength to weight ratio than fibers. The pre- sent investigation aims to develop Cellulose Reinforced Polymer Composite (CRPC) using cellulose from jute and sisal fibers as reinforcement and epoxy L-12 as matrix. CRPC with different proportions of cel- lulose and epoxies were developed using compression moulding techniques. Further mechanical proper- ties such as tensile, impact and flexural strength have been examined for all 6 different proportions. The current study reveals that CRPC can be promising replacement for NFRP composite for lower load bearing applications in automotive industries and thus it can lead to usage of more sustainable and biodegradable composites. Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Con- ference on Recent Advances in Materials & Manufacturing Technologies. 1. Introduction In the current scenario of materials engineering and design field, the environmental awareness brought life to several compos- ite materials in the market for automotive and other applications. The increasing importance of environmental concerns is a major element to force the research community to develop new materials from natural resources and is renewable [1,2]. Even though the environmental factors have a significant role in the composites properties, mechanical aspects should also be considered purpose- fully. Several researchers have experimented on synthesis of eco- friendly polymers based composites [1–7]. These experiments have resulted in Natural Fiber Reinforced Polymer composites (NFRP). Several investigations were carried out on NFRP which have transformed composites materials market [3–5,7–10]. This has led several automotive industries to focus on the development of composite materials using natural -fibers such as jute, coir, sisal, pineapple, ramie, bamboo, banana etc., for the applications in low-load bearing conditions [3–5,7–9]. NFRP Composite, the won- der material with light weight, corrosion resistance, dimensional stability, parts consolidation and tooling minimization with mini- mum surface finish, design flexibility, low moisture absorption properties can replace the conventional polymer composites [8,9]. The replacement of steel with NFRP composite can save up to 60–80 percentages of component weight and 20–50 weight per- centages with aluminum components [8]. The attractive mechanical and tribological characteristics of NFRP make it a promising material in the aerospace as well as automotive industry [10]. In the last decade, these composites have experienced rapid growth in the European automotive mar- ket, and this trend appears to be global in nature [10,11]. Among the various material categories, the natural fiber composites are dominant, evolving with wide range of applications from day to day products to complex niche applications. The automotive indus- try is one of the major consumers of natural composite material in their products which are used for interior applications, such as door panels and trunk liners etc. [11,12]. The natural fibers show scatter in their properties, because of their inherent properties and the conditions of processing [12]. To ensure the quality of https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.12.218 2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Recent Advances in Materials & Manufacturing Technologies. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: arun@dubai.bits-pilani.ac.in (M. Arun). Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr Please cite this article as: M. Arun, S. Vincent and R. Karthikeyan, Development and characterization of sisal and jute cellulose reinforced polymer com- posite, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.12.218