Author(s)

Chhatrapati Parida¹, Chinmay Pradhan², Sarat Kumar Dash³, Sarat Chandra Das⁴

¹Depatment of Physics, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar, India.
²Post Graduate Department of Botany, Vani Vihar, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, India.
³Department of Education in Science and Mathematics, National Council of Educational Research and Training, Bhubaneswar, India.
⁴Department of Chemistry, Salipur College, Salipur, India.

Dynamic mechanical behaviour of resorcinol-formaldehyde matrix and its composites reinforced with natural fibers of Luffa cylindrica (LC) has been studied. The effects of fiber loading, alkali treatment on fiber, temperature and frequency on storage modulus and mechanical-loss factor of the composites were studied. The dynamic mechanical behaviour of the composites and pure matrix has been investigated in the frequency range from 0.1 Hz to 10 Hz and temperature range from 26℃ to 100℃. The experimental results show that the values of storage modulus of the composites increase with increase in fiber loading. The storage modulus of treated LC fiber composites were found to be enhanced when compared with the untreated fiber composites. It was also found that mechanical-loss factor was more when untreated LC fibers were incorporated in the composites and decreased with the incorporation of treated LC fiber. The storage modulus of all the composites increased with frequency but decreased with rise of temperature. The glass transition temperature of the composites was evaluated from the peaks of tan delta variations.

LC, Storage Modulus, Mechanical Loss Factor, Tan Delta, Visco-Elastic Nature

Parida, C. , Pradhan, C. , Dash, S. and Das, S. (2015) Dynamic Mechanical Behavior of Luffa cylindrica Fiber-Resorcinol Composites. Open Journal of Composite Materials, 5, 22-29. doi: 10.4236/ojcm.2015.51005.