A comparative study on surface roughness of a novel Snake grass fiber/Aluminium powder reinforced epoxy composite and Snake grass fiber epoxy composite. (2023) - Nanda Kumar, Kasetty
Highlights: Evaluation of the surface roughness of novel Snake grass fiber/Aluminium powder reinforced epoxy composite and compare it with Snake grass fiber epoxy composite in drilling process. Composites were fabricated by hand layup process. Surface roughness of the drilled hole in composite specimen was measured by Surface Roughness tester. Inclusion of aluminium filler decreases surface roughness of the snake grass epoxy composite. Abstract: The main objective of this study is to evaluate the surface roughness of a novel Snake grass fiber/Aluminium powder reinforced epoxy composite and compare it with Snake grass fiber epoxy composite in drilling process. In this work, the Snake grass fiber epoxy composite was taken as a control group with (N = 20) sample specimens. Also, Snake grass fiber with 20 % filler reinforced epoxy composites was considered as an experimental group with (N = 20) sample specimens. Composites plates were prepared with the hand layup method by various volume fractions of 0 % (without filler), 20 % Aluminium powder novel synthetic-filler. Surface roughness of the Snake grass fiber 20 % filler reinforced epoxy composite is 3.72 µm. Snake grass fiber with 20 % filler epoxy composite is 4.20 µm. Snake grass fiber with 20 % filler has statistically significant p = 0.024 (p < 0.05) than Snake grass fiber epoxy composite. Within the limitations of this study, the surface roughness of Snake grass fiber with a 20 % volume fraction of aluminum powder filler reinforced epoxy composite exhibited better significance than the Snake grass fiber epoxy composite.