Mechanical, thermophysical and fire properties of sansevieria fiber-reinforced polyester composites

The objective of present work is to introduce sansevieria natural fiber as reinforcement in the preparation of partially biodegradable green composites. The effect of fiber content on mechanical properties of composite was investigated and found that tensile strength and impact strength at maximum fiber content were 2.55 and 4.2 times to that of pure resin, respectively. Transverse thermal conductivity of unidirectional composites was investigated experimentally by a guarded heat flowmeter method. The thermal conductivity of composite decreased with increase in fiber content and the quite opposite trend was observed with respect to temperature. In addition, the experimental results of thermal conductivity at different volume fractions were compared with theoretical model. The response of specific heat capacity of the composite with temperature as measured by differential scanning calorimeter was discussed. Lowest thermal diffusivity of composite was observed at 90 degrees C and its value is 0.9948E-07 m(2) s(-1). Fire behavior of composite was studied using the oxygen consumption cone calorimeter technique. The addition of sansevieria fiber has effectively reduced the heat release rate (HRR) and peak heat release rate (PHRR) of the matrix by 10.4%, and 25.7%, respectively. But the composite ignite earlier, release more amount of carbon dioxide yield and total smoke during combustion, when compared to neat polyester resin. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.