THE EFFECT OF SLS TREATMENT ON TENSILE PROPERTY OF COCONUT FIBER REINFORCED EPOXY COMPOSITES

A study on the effect of fiber length and fiber surface modification on tensile property
of alkaline treated coir fiber reinforced epoxy composites is presented in this paper. The fiber
surface treatment was carried out using Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) solution at five different
concentrations, 2%, 4%, 6%, 8% and 10% respectively. Each group of the coir fiber was treated
for 10 days. For each group the coir fibers experiments were conducted for different fiber lengths
namely 10, 20, and 30mm. The SLS treated coir fiber was used as a reinforcement and epoxy was
used as a matrix to fabricate the composites. The tensile strength of different samples of
composites was measured. Increased SLS concentration in fiber treatment was found to increase
the tensile strength up to 4% and further increase in SLS concentration reduced the tensile
strength, also, experimental results showed that an increase in fiber length increased tensile
strength. The maximum tensile strength of the composite was found to be uniformly occurring for
4% SLS with 30mm fiber length composite samples. Based on the nonlinear regression analysis
the tensile strength equation was proposed for coir fiber reinforced epoxy composites.