Analysis of Mechanical Properties of Coconut Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Polymer Composites by FEA analysis

In recent years, composite material replaces conventional material like metal, wood etc due to its light weight, high strength to weight ratio and stiffness properties. Natural fibers like coir, bamboo fiber, banana plant fiber etc has low cost, easily availability and less harmful to human. In this work, coir fiber is used as a reinforced material. Composites were prepared with different weight ratio of coir fibers with epoxy resin. To find the effect of coir fibers on the mechanical properties of composite, tensile test, impact test and hardness test were conducted on the prepared specimens. ASTM D638-V and ASTM D256 standards were used to prepare the specimens for tensile and impact test respectively. Experimental result shows that the addition of coir fibers increases the strength of composite; the composite with 7.5% fiber content shows maximum tensile and impact strength. FEA analysis can be done to save time and compare the experimental data with FEA analysis data . Ansys software is used for FEA analysis . Finally check any difference in experimental data with FEA analysis The experimental values are more than the FEA values. Decrease value in mechanical testing may result of the presence of inhomoginites such as, mixture of matrix and reinforced material thoroughly, air bubbles presence in the specimens