Mechanical Properties of Gamma-Irradiated Natural Fiber Reinforced Composites

Abstract

Today we are facing a great problem due to the synthetic compounds, as most of them are not environmentally friendly. Natural fibers are the fibers which are obtained from the nature and these fibers are environment friendly. So the use of natural fiber is increasing day by day in different sectors. But natural fiber has some limitations for widely use, one of them is the hydrophilic nature. So it cannot be widely used. That is why we need to incorporate them with low mechanical property synthetic compounds, widely known as composite materials. When we are using natural fiber with polymeric materials by forming composites, the fiber properties greatly influence the strength or mechanical properties. So researchers are trying to reduce this weakness of the natural fiber reinforced composite materials. One of the widely used methods for the improvement of tensile properties is the application of radiation (gamma and UV). The control use of gamma and UV-radiation increases the tensile properties in some extent for the use of materials in practical applications. The reason of this increment in tensile properties is the high energy radiation making crosslink among the molecules. In all the respect of fiber reinforced composite highest tensile properties are observed at a certain dose of gamma and UV-radiation.