Fatigue behaviour of oil palm fruit bunch fibre/epoxy and carbon fibre/epoxy composites

Unidirectional tensile tests were carried out on oil palm fruit bunch fibre (OPFBF)/epoxy composite and carbon fibre (CF)/epoxy composite to determine their modulus and ultimate tensile stress (UTS). The UTS determined from these tests were then used as the fatigue test parameters. Two different values of fibre volume ratios, V-f, namely 35% and 55% were studied for OPFBF/epoxy composite. Fatigue tests using constant stress amplitude were carried out for OPFBF/epoxy and CF/epoxy composites at the stress ratios of 0.1 and 0.5 and frequency of 20 Hz. The results for tensile properties and fatigue behaviour as well as failure mechanism were evaluated. The results show that the UTS values for OPFBF is 24.9 MPa and for OPFBF/epoxy composite with 35% fibre volume ratio is 47.78 MPa. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.