Production and characterization of bamboo and sisal fiber reinforced hybrid composite for interior automotive body application

Composite materials have high strength to weight ratio with low density and high stiffness to weight, high strength ratios, and high fatigue strength to weight ratio compared to traditional engineering materials making them find wide applications in structural constructions. When the lightweight composite materials which are made of lightweight natural fibres are used in automotive application, the fuel economy of the vehicle improves reducing the related harmful emissions. The aim of this research is to develop and characterize the performance of sisal and bamboo reinforced polyester hybrid composite (BSFRHC) with different fibre orientation of sisal and unidirectional (UD) bamboo fibre. Next, BSFRHC was fabricated with 20% total fibre volume fraction. Of this total fibre volume, the composite is fabricated in 3:1 bamboo to sisal fibre ratio using hand lay-up technique. Then tensile, compressive, impact and flexural tests were carried out. In general, it is concluded that as varying fiber orientation, the tensile strength varies. The higher tensile strength is observed with 0° fibre orientation of bamboo/sisal fiber reinforced hybrid composite. From compressive strength of the hybrid composite reinforced with bamboo/sisal fibre, it is observed that the 0°-fibre orientation composite is exhibiting higher compressive strength than 90° fibre orientation composite and bidirectional (0°/90°) fibre orientation composite. Unidirectional 90° fibre orientation was found to have a higher tensile and flexural strength whereas unidirectional 90° and bidirectional (0°/90°) fibre orientation nearly have the same value of tensile strength, whereas bidirectional (0°/90°) was found to be having higher flexural strength than unidirectional 90° fibre orientation. Impact analysis of vehicle internal door panel made of BSFRHC was done using ANSYS Software. Furthermore, it is found that the bamboo and sisal fibre reinforced hybrid composite in unidirectional 0° has the potential to be used for automotive interior part application.