Prediction of elastic properties of thermoplastic composites with natural fibers

Abstract

The present work is an investigation on the elastic properties of Luffa as well as Palm natural fiber composites (NFC) in high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) matrixes, taking into consideration the effect of the variation of the volume fractions (V-f) of fibers. Moreover, representative volume element (RVE) models with unidirectional and chopped random fiber orientations were utilized for predicting longitudinal, transverse, and shear moduli as well as Poisson's ratio. Furthermore, rule of mixture (ROM), Halpin-Tsai, Chamis, and Nielsen analytical approaches were used for comparing and validating the finite element analysis (FEA) results. RVE Chopped showed highest accuracy in predicting the elastic properties of luffa and palm-reinforced thermoplastics. RVE unidirectional model findings revealed a significant agreement with analytical results.