Investigation on mechanical behaviour of twisted natural fiber hybrid composite fabricated by vacuum assisted compression molding technique

Nowadays, automotive, packaging and sport equipment industries are using natural fibre based composite materials as they are cheap, abundantly available and having a lot of ecological advantages. The main objective of this paper is to introduce a new concept of fibre twisting and to investigate the effect of twisting and the fibre orientation on the mechanical properties of bio degradable green composites. Here, the composites are fabricated by vacuum assisted compression molding technique in which the problems of hand lay process are eliminated. Here, two fibers namely twisted neem and twisted kenaf are sandwiched between layers of glass fibres to enhance the stiffness and strength of the laminates. Initially, the fibers are alkalized to increase the mechanical properties. The result shows that there is a significant improvement in mechanical properties of composites due to the presence of twisted fibers. It also shows the influence of fiber orientation on mechanical properties.