Estudio de las propiedades a tensión de un material biocompuesto reforzado con haces de fibras cortas de bambú.

In the present investigation, the tensile mechanical properties of the isotactic polypropylene (PP) biocomposite material reinforced with randomly oriented short bamboo fiber bundles were determined. Samples of the material with different reinforcement contents (20, 30 and 40%) were prepared, using polypropylene with grafts of maleic anhydride molecules (MAPP) as coupling agent. A group of these samples were subjected to an accelerated thermal aging treatment to evaluate the effect of said treatment on the tensile properties of the biocomposite. Tensile tests were carried out at different deformation rates (10 and 50 mm/min) and an increase in tensile strength (29 to 45 MPa) and elastic modulus (1 to 3 GPa) of the PP with the fiber content was obtained. For different stretching speeds, better resistance at high speeds was obtained. Thermal aging for 24 hours at 100 °C increased the resistance of pure PP. For the biocomposites, a low resistance was obtained in the samples aged in greater time (98 °C, 10 days). Through scanning electron microscopy, a microstructural characterization was carried out that allowed explaining the improvement of the resistance of the fiber reinforced PP, and in some cases, the loss of resistance due to heat treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]