ICAMB 2012, Jan 9-11, 2012

Processing and effect on mechanical properties of Redmud filled banana polyester composites
V. Arumuga Prabu, S. Kalirasu, M. Uthayakumar and V. Manikandan

Abstract Red mud is an industrial waste generated during the

production of alumina by Bayers process. The present work describes the development and characterisation of a new set of polymer composites consisting of banana fiber reinforcement, polyester resin and red mud particulate fillers. Hand Layup technique is used for preparing specimens. At first specimens are prepared with different percentage combinations of red mud (5%,10%and20%) with polyester, based on experimental results an optimal weight percentage of red mud is obtained. This weight percentage of red mud is used to prepare banana fiber reinforced polyester composites. Banana fiber of different lengths(10mm,20mm) and different weight percentages(10%,15%and20%) is taken The banana fiber reinforced polyester with and without red mud filling is taken for comparison of mechanical properties.

KeywordsRed mud, Polyester Resin, Banana fiber, fiber length Mechanical Properties. I. INTRODUCTION

OLYMER composite materials have generated wide interest in various engineering fields, particularly in aerospace applications. Research is underway worldwide to develop newer composites with varied combinations of fibers and fillers so as to make them useable under different operational conditions. Industrial development over the last decades has generated large amounts of toxic and hazardous inorganic waste like, fly ash, slag, red mud etc. Which contain appreciable amounts of hazardous elements such as Pub, Cr, Cu, Zn, Cd and Hg.

discharged by these industries poses an environmental and economical problem. The treatment and disposal of this residue is a major operation in any alumina plant. Red mud, as the name suggests, is brick red in colour and slimy having average particle size of about 75-100 m The interest in natural fiber-reinforced polymer composite materials is rapidly growing both in terms of their industrial applications and fundamental research. They are renewable, cheap, completely or partially recyclable, and biodegradable. Plants, such as flax, cotton, hemp, jute, sisal, kenaf, pineapple, ramie, bamboo, banana, etc., as well as wood, used from time immemorial as a source of lignocellulosic fibers, are more and more often applied as the reinforcement of composites. Their availability, renewability, low density, and price as well as satisfactory mechanical properties make them an attractive ecological alternative to glass, carbon and man-made fibers used for the manufacturing of composites. The natural fiber-containing composites are more environmentally friendly, and are used in transportation (automobiles, railway coaches, aerospace), military applications, building and construction industries (ceiling paneling, partition boards), packaging, consumer products, etc .This work presents the main objective is to create a new set of composites by using industrial waste redmud along with natural fiber banana to improve mechanical properties. II. LITERATURE REVIEW According to Sandhyarani Biswas and Alok Satapathy, A comparative study indicates that although the bamboo based composites exhibit relatively inferior mechanical properties, their erosion wear performance is better than that of the glass fiber reinforced composites It further indicates that the incorporation of red mud particulates results in improvement of erosion wear resistance of both the bamboo and glass fiber composites. Hybrid composites suitable for applications in highly erosive environments can be prepared by reinforcement of bamboo fibers and filling of micro-sized red mud particles in epoxy resin. The erosion wear performance of these composites improves quite significantly by addition of red mud filler. The mechanical properties like tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural strength, impact strength and interlaminar shear strength of composites with bamboofiber reinforcement are found to be much lower than those reported for glassfiber reinforcement. However, the micro-hardness values of the former are relatively greater than the later ones. 25

Most of these wastes are buried in landfills, which is costly and environmentally unsatisfactory. Therefore, it is essential to seek new options to recycle or reuse the inorganic residues. The use of waste materials such as red mud for composite material is a promising development. Production of alumina from bauxite by the Bayers process is associated with the generation of red mud as the major waste material in alumina industries worldwide. Depending upon the quality of bauxite, the quantity of red mud generated varies from 55- 65% of the bauxite processed. The enormous quantity of red mud
F. V. Arumuga Prabu Research scholar,Department of Mechanical Engg.,Kalasalingam university,krishnankoil-626126. S. S. Kalirasu PG Student,Department of Mechanical Engg.,Kalasalingam university, krishnankoil-626126. T. M. Uthayakumar and V. Manikandan Professor,Department of Mechanical Engg.,Kalasalingam university, krishnankoil-626126, email ID aprabucad_mech@yahoo.com, Phone-7373513214.

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ICAMB 2012, Jan 9-11, 2012 This suggests that bamboo fiber composites have the potential to replace glass in some applications that do not require very high load bearing capabilities[1].Sabu Thomas et al ,discussed Sisal/polyester composite showed maximum damping behaviour and highest impact strength as compared to banana/polyester as well as hybrid composites [2].According to A.V. Ratna Prasad et al, fabricated up to a maximum volume fraction of fibre of 0.37 in the case of tensile testing and 0.39 for flexural and dielectric testing. It has been observed that the tensile properties increase with respect to volume fraction of fibre for vakka fibre composite and are also more than those of sisal and banana composites and comparable to those of bamboo composites. The flexural strength of vakka fibre composite is more than that of banana composite and is closer to sisal fibre composite with respect to the volume fraction of fibre, where as the flexural modulus is much higher than those of banana and sisal fibre composites and also very much closer to bamboo fibre composites[3]. N. Venkateshwaran et al,reported that initially optimum fiber length and weight percentage were determined. To improve the mechanical properties, banana fiber was hybridised with sisal fiber. This study showed that addition of sisal fiber in banana/epoxy composites of up to 50% by weight results in increasing the mechanical properties and decreasing the moisture absorption property [4]. Sabu Thomas and Jayamol George reported that Banana fibre in combination with glass is excellent for making cost effective composite materials. The effect of the arrangement of glass and banana fibre in the preparation of composites have also been studied. A volume fraction of 0.11 glass mixed with banana fibre gives 54.5 % increase in the tensile strength and 196 % increase in the impact strength of the composites. Linear increase in tensile strength is noted as a result of the increase of glass[5].

Fig.1 Banana fiber filled Redmud Specimen

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A. 4.1 Impact Strength The tests are done as per ASTM D 256 using an impact tester. The standard specimen for ASTM D 256 is 65 x 13 x 3 mm. The most common methods of measuring impact energy are the Izod test and Charpy test The Charpy test is most commonly used to evaluate the relative toughness or impact toughness of materials and as such is often used in quality control applications where it is a fast and economical test. The impact energy (J) is calculated from the digital display, which is fitted on the machine. Five samples are taken for each test and the results are averaged. Impact test results shows that the addition of Red mud Improves the impact strength in all cases irrespective of fiber length and fiber weight compositions. Fig 2and Fig 3 shows the impact testing machine and the specimens prepared for impact strength as per ASTM standard.Fig4and Fig5 shows impact results where there is an increase takes place, for 10% fiber of length 10mm and 20mm. from 1.575 to 3.512 J and from 1.76 to 3.73 J , for 15% fiber of length 10mm and 20mm.from 4.411 to 5.443 J and from 5.919 to 8.179 J and for 20% fiber of length 10mm and 20mm.from 5.589 to 6.746 J and from 8.197 to 9.756 J.

III. EXPERIMENT DETAILS Banana fibers untreated are reinforced in unsaturated general purpose polyester Resin filled with redmud to prepare the composites. The composite slabs are made by conventional hand-lay-up Technique. Two percent cobalt nephthalate (as accelerator) is mixed thoroughly in GP polyester resin and then 3% methyl-ethyl-ketone-peroxide (MEKP) as hardener is mixed in the resin prior to reinforcement. Red mud collected from madras aluminum company (MALCO) at salem, Tamil nadu is sieved to obtain particle size in the range 75-100 m. At first polyester mixed with redmud (manual mixing), specimens are prepared at different weight percentages of redmud (5%,10% and 15%) and the optimal weight percentage value is ontained.banana fiber loading of different weight compositions (10%, 15%,20%) for different fiber length (10mm, 20mm) were prepared. Mould is put under load for about 5to6 hours for proper curing at room temperature. Similar procedure adapted for the preparation of the Banana reinforced polymer composites.The specimen is shown in Fig-1
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Fig-4 Impact strength of redmud filled banana fiber of length 10mm

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ICAMB 2012, Jan 9-11, 2012

Fig 2 Impact Testing Machine Fig-6 Flexural strength of redmud filled banana fiber of length 1cm

Fig .3 -Impact test specimen as per ASTM standard

Fig-7 Flexural strength of redmud filled banana fiber of length 2cm

Fig 7 shows for different weight combinations of fiber and fiber length of 2cm the flexual strength increases from 37 to 39 Mpa for 10%fiber and from 53 to 59 Mpa for 15%fiber and from 22 to 23 Mpa for 20%fiber
Fig-5 Impact strength of redmud filled banana fiber of length 20mm

B. Flexural strength A three point bend test is conducted for finding out this material property In the present investigation also the composites were subjected to this test in a UTM shown in fig8.Fig-9 shows typical specimen of flexural test A span of 50 mm was taken and cross head speed was maintained at 2 mm/min. Five samples are taken from each test and the results are averaged. The flexural test is performed in UTM (capacity3T) . Flexural test was performed on all the three samples as per ASTM D 790 test standards.the flexural results shows a marginaal increase by the addition of redmud in all the cases as shown in fig6 & 7. fig6 shows for different weight combinations of fiber and fiber length of 1cm the flexual strength increases from 49 to 51 Mpa for 10%fiber and from 47 to 49 Mpa for 15%fiber and from 23 to 26 Mpa for 20%fiber

C. Tensile Strength The tensile test is generally performed in universal testing machine. The tensile test is performed in UTM (capacity-3T) shown in fig-8 with a crosshead of 1mm/min and result are analyzed.fig-10 shows the tensile test specimen as per ASTM standard. The dimension of the specimen is 165mm*10mm*3mm. A thickness of 3mm is maintained for the unfilled as well as particulate filled composite specimen. A uni-axial load is applied through the ends. The tension test was performed on all the three samples as per ASTM D638 test standards.The tensile results shows a decrease in value by the addition of redmud in all the cases as shown in Fig10&11.Fig 10 shows for different weight combinations of fibre and fibre length of 1cm the tensile strength decreases from 29 to 12 Mpa for 10%fiber and from 32 to 20 Mpa for 15%fiber and from 17 to 16 Mpa for 20%fiber.Fig 11 shows for different weight combinations of fibre and fibre length of 2 cm the tensile strength decreases from 21 to 11 Mpa for 10%fiber and from

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ICAMB 2012, Jan 9-11, 2012 36 to 13 Mpa for 15%fiber and from 20 to 13 Mpa for 20%fiber

Fig-11 Tensile strength of redmud filled banana fiber of length 10mm

Fig-8Universal Testing Machine

Fig-12 Tensile strength of redmud filled banana fiber of length 20mm Fig -9 Flexural Specimen

V. CONCLUSION This work shows that successful fabrication of a banana fibre reinforced polyester composites with and without filler by simple hand lay-up technique. An industrial waste like red mud can also be gainfully utilized for the composite making purpose which solve environmental related issues. The results justified the usage of redmud as a filler it shows better improvement in impact and flexural for the fibre combination of weight percentage 20% and fibre length of 20mm the impact results shows maximum result but for flexural the fibre combination of weight percentage 15% and fibre length of 20mm shows maximum result. In flexural test and impact strength result red mud filled banana fibre with polyester resin has more flexural strength, when compare to pure banana fibre matrix. There is an increase and decrease in the value of tensile strength for different combinations which shows mainly due to distribution of particulates and it goes on 28

Fig -10 Tensile Specimen

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ICAMB 2012, Jan 9-11, 2012 decreasing by more addition of redmud also the chemical reaction at the interface between the filler particles and the matrix too weak to transfer the tensile stress. REFERENCES
[1] Sandhyarani Biswas, Alok Satapathy, A comparative study on erosion characteristics of red mud filled bamboo epoxy and glass epoxy composites. Materials and Design Vol 31,1752-1767 (2010). [2] Maries Idicula, S.K. Malhotra, Kuruvilla Joseph and Sabu ThomasSandhyarani Biswas , Dynamic mechanical analysis of randomly oriented intimately mixed short banana/sisal hybrid fibre reinforced polyester composites. Composites Science and Technology 10771087 (2005). [3] K. Murali Mohan Rao, K. Mohana Rao, A.V. Ratna Prasad, Fabrication and testing of natural fibre composites: Vakka, sisal, bamboo and banana , Materials and Design 508513 (2010). [4] N. Venkateshwaran ,A.ElayaPerumal,A. Alavudeen ,B,M.Thiruchitrambalam Mechanical and water absorption behaviour banana/sisal reinforced hybrid composites. Materials and Design 40174021 (2011).

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