Anatomical, Mechanical and Fractographic Characterization of Needle Punched Musa sapientum Cellulosic Fiber/UPE Composites

Abstract This study focuses on the evolution of a new biodegradable material sourced from agro-waste, and how it plays a vital role in replacing nonbiodegradable material. In the present work, new fibers were extracted from the pseudo stem of the Nendran variety of the banana plant. Initially, anatomical studies were carried out on raw fibers to investigate cellulosic and noncellulosic structures to prove its reinforcement potentiality. Later the cellulosic fibers were needle punched and reinforced with unsaturated polyester matrix (UPE) to fabricate a needle-punched banana fiber composite (NPBFC). Subsequently, 30 mm of chopped banana fiber and chopped glass fiber was reinforced randomly with the UPE to fabricate random banana fiber composites (RBFCs) and random glass fiber composites (RGFCs), respectively. Tensile, flexural, hardness, and impact tests were conducted on different fiber wt.% of NPBFC, RBFC, and RGFC to compute the mechanical properties. The results revealed superior mechanical properties at 40 wt.% fiber content. However, beyond 40 wt.% (i.e., 50 wt.%), abrupt failure due to inferior interfacial bonding between the composite constituents was noted. Furthermore, the increases in tensile, flexural, hardness, and impact strength of optimized NPBFC were 26.17, 24.73, 53.41, and 19.54 %, respectively, which are more supercilious than RBFC and comparable with RGFC. Moreover, the thermal stability of optimized NPBFC was evidenced up to 260°C. Finally, field emission scanning electron microscopy observation inferred that the interfacial bonding failure in NPBFC is less significant than the RBFC and RGFC. This study concludes that the synthesized NPBFC can be used for the application of lightweight structural components.