Studies on water absorption behaviour of bamboo–epoxy composite filled with cenosphere. (June 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jena, Hemalata; Pradhan, Arun Kumar; Pandit, Mihir Kumar
• Is Part Of: Journal of reinforced plastics and composites. Volume 33:Number 11(2014)
• Page Start: 1059
• Page End: 1068
• Publication Date: 2014-06
• Subjects: Cenosphere -- bamboo fibre -- epoxy -- water absorption behaviour; Reinforced plastics -- Periodicals; Composite materials -- Periodicals; 620.1923
• DOI: 10.1177/0731684414523325
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0731-6844

Abstract

This paper deals with the evaluation of water absorption properties of natural fibre composites consisting of bamboo fibre as reinforcement, epoxy as matrix and cenosphere as particulate filler at different environmental conditions. Hand lay-up technique is used to fabricate the composites with varying number of layers of bamboo fibre and cenosphere filler content. Water absorption kinetics of the composites is presented in this paper. It is observed that the rate of water absorption depends on the fibre content as well as filler content. Addition of filler in the layered bamboo–epoxy composite decreases the moisture absorption capacity and maximum reduction is observed to be 21% and 32% for distilled and sea water conditions, respectively, in seven-layered composite with 3.0 wt% filler.