Effect of Fiber Orientation and Stacking Sequence on Mechanical and Thermal Characteristics of Banana-Kenaf Hybrid Epoxy Composite

The usage of hybrid natural composites has surged in almost all fields of engineering due to their advantage of possessing high strength to weight ratio and biodegradability. This paper deals with the fabrication and investigation of mechanical and thermal properties of banana-kenaf glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite which is relatively a newer hybrid composite. In this study, the composite is fabricated by a hand layup process with different fiber orientations and also with different volume fractions. The composites are prepared with five different proportions of banana-kenaf fibers. Various mechanical and thermal tests are conducted and the result shows that the hybrid composite in which fibers are arranged at 45 degrees inclination has better properties than the others. Also, failure morphology analysis is done using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) through which the internal structures of the tested specimen are analysed.