Investigation on Optimization of Mechanical Properties of Bagasse Reinforced Epoxy Composite Using Grey Relational Analysis

Abstract

Abstract In this present study, the fabrication of polymer composite matrix has been designed using the epoxy matrix and bagasse fibre. The most crucial operating parameters such as chemical treatment, volume fraction of fibre content, concentration of chemical, and soaking hours of fibre in the chemical were evaluated. Based on these parameters, the outcomes such as tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength, hardness, inter laminar shear strength, and coefficient of friction were measured and evaluated. The optimization of all the operating parameters against the various outcome parameters has been performed by Grey relational analysis. The analysis assist in making decision to select the best optimum parameters by assigning the rank for the combined mechanical properties with respect to different operating input variables. The optimum combination of operating parameters determined was (i) chemical treatment – KMnO4 (ii) Volume fraction of fibre content – 30 wt % (iii) Concentration of chemical – 7% and (iv) soaking hours of fibre – 6 hours.