Tensile and Flexural Strengths of Coconut Shell Particle & Coir Fibre Reinforced Composite

This paper presents the tensile and flexural strengths of coconut shell particle and coir fibre reinforced wood composite. The composites material were fabricated by reinforcing coconut shell particle (size between 200-800pm) by 17- 28 wt% and coir fibre (2-5mm) by 2-3 wt% into epoxy matrix using open mould casting method. Microscopic investigations were done for estimating properties. Experimental results showed that ultimate strength, modulus of elasticity, % elongation decreases with wt% of shell particle. Ultimate strength and % elongation increases but modulus of elasticity decreases with the increase of coir wt%. Modulus of elasticity decreases with the reinforcement of shell particle and coir both. Flexural strength decreases with addition of coir fibre. The coconut shell particles and coir fibers are good reinforcing of 30 wt% materials to reduce the consumption of resin as well as utilizing waste natural material with maintaining the properties required for structural applications. The open mould casting method used has been proved to be easy way of composite material preparation.