Study on Jute Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene (PP)

Composite

Ma Sheng and Wang Yimin*

State Key Laboratory for Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials
Donghua University, Shanghai, 200051, P. R. China

Zhang Anding and Ding Xin

College of textile, Donghua University, Shanghai, 200051, P. R. China

ABSTRACT

Jute fiber reinforced PP composites are studied in this article. The composites
are made of jute fiber as reinforcement for thermoplastic polypropylene. The effect of
different fiber content and different fiber length on composite properties, such as the
tensile strength, the flexural strength and impact strength are studied. The process
conditions for making the composite and the invalidation theory of the composite are
also discussed. The results indicate that the comprehensive properties of the
composites with 12mm fiber length and 10% fiber weight content are improved
obviously.

INTRODUCTION

Composite materials made of cellulose-based fibers such as jute fiber demonstrate

remarkable environmental and economical advantages. This is because the cellulosic
fibers have many advantages, such as low cost, low density, high specific strength and
modulus, limited requirements on processing equipments, no health problems, ease of
fiber surface modification, and availability as renewable natural resources. And this
composite combines good mechanical properties with a low specific mass and offers
an alternative material to glass-fiber reinforced plastics in some technical applications.
However, their high level of moisture absorption, poor wettabi1ity by non-polar
plastics, and insufficient adhesion between untreated fibers and the polymer matrix
frequently exhibit unsatisfactory mechanical properties.
Despite this intrinsical disadvantages, the study of jute fiber-reinforced plastic
composites is continually increasing. For example, some scientists and experts of
India have given lots of studies about jute fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites.
Through these earlier papers, it is summarized that mechanical performance of a
fiber-reinforced plastic composite primarily depends on three factors: (a) strength and
modulus of the reinforced materials, (b) strength and chemical stability of the matrix,
and (c) effectiveness of the bond between the fibers and the polymer matrix in
transferring stress across the interface. Most of the composite properties are strongly
depended on microstructure parameters such as fiber length, fiber content and

• Corresponding author, Donghua University, Tel: 86-21-62379785, Fax: 86-21-62379309, E-mail

address: ymw@dhu.edu.cn
 Jute Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composite 53

alignment and packing arrangement of fibers. In randomly oriented short fiber

composites, the fiber length and fiber content play an important role in determining
their mechanical performance. The optimal length of the jute fiber depends on the
bonding between the fiber and the resin. And similarly, the volume fraction of the
fiber lies on the interfacial bonding exists between the fiber and the matrix.
Several types of thermoplastics like polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene
have been reported as matrices for natural fiber composites. These polymers may have
different agglutination towards the fiber due to the difference in their chemical
structure. As a consequence, the reinforcement effect of the fibers in these matrices
may vary widely. It is well known that some polymers are susceptible to
reinforcement; others are not with respect to particular filler. For fiber filled
composites it has been found that the higher the flow limit of the matrix the lower the
critical length of the fiber. This paper selected polypropylene (PP) as the matrix.
However, the studies reported in the literature on the use of jute fiber as
reinforcement in thermoplastic polymer like PP have been scanty. This can be
attributed to the invalidation behavior for jute fiber reinforced PP composite is less
well understood than for glass fiber reinforced plastic composite because of the lack
of systematic and detailed information available. Base on this reason, this article deals
with the effects on the mechanical properties of jute fiber reinforced PP composite
with different fiber length and fiber content. By comparison, the parameter and
process optimization of the composite is introduced in this paper.

EXPERIMENTAL

Materials

Jute fiber was obtained from Zhejiang Jute Co., Ltd, China. And PP was gained
from Jin Shan Petrochemical Corporation Ltd, Shanghai, China. The properties of jute
fiber and the matrix PP are presented in Table 1.
Jute fiber was cut to 3mm, 5mm and lOmm in length respectively. And the
average value of the diameter of the jute fiber is 54J.lm. The melt flow index (MF!) of
PP is 5g/10min.

TABLE I Properties of jute fiber and PP

Residual
Tensile Tensile Elongation Moisture
Density pastern
Materials strength modulus at break regam
/g'cm- 3 ratio
IMPa /GPa /% /%
/%
Jute fiber 1.41 424 14.13 2.54 12.6 4.24
pp 0.91 28.5 0.867 10.34

Sample Preparation

A screw mixing technique was used to make the jute fiber reinforced PP composite.
The composite containing 10, 20 and 30% by weight of fiber was prepared using fiber
of length in 3mm, 5mm and 10mm. The temperature of the screw head is controlled
no more than 180 'C because of the degradability of the jute fiber. The tensile
specimen, the flexional specimen and the impact specimen were prepared by injection
54 Jute Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composite

molding according to the standard of ASTM D63814, ASTM D790 and ASTM D256.

Testing of Composite

Tensile testing and flexural testing of thermoplastic composite was carried out
using a Universal testing machine of Tianshui Sansi of China at a crosshead speed of
5mm/min and a gauge length of 100mm and 95mm respectively. The tensile modulus
and elongation at break of the composite were calculated from the stress-displacement
curve. At least five specimens were tested for each set of samples. Impact testing was
carried out using a pendulum RESIL IMPACTOR of Italy.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Effect of Fiber Content

Table II Effect of jute content on mechanical properties of jutelPP composite

Materials PP B c D
Tensile strengthIMPa 28.5 29.88 29.82 29.78
Tensile modulus/GPa 0.867 1.875 1.634 1.157
Flexural strengthIMPa 30.16 34.68 39.2 40.7
Flexural modulus/GPa 0.776 1.184 1.768 2.5
Impact strengthlJ • m-2 6.57 4.78 4.95 4.75
The weight content of the jute fiber in the composite is 10, 20 and 30%; and
corresponding volume content is about 5.6, 13.1, and 20.5%. The effect of jute
content on mechanical properties of jute fiber reinforced PP composite is presented in
Table II.
From the results it is observed that all mechanical properties except impact
strength improve with the adding jute fiber to the resin. From T Table II, the most
remarkable observations are: (a) The tensile strength of the composite increases by
about 4.5% compare to PP. However, the improvement quantity is slightly falling with
increase of jute content. And it was easy to find that the improvement is the most
remarkable when the fiber weight content is 10%. (b) The flexural strength of jute
fiber reinforced PP composite improves greatly compare to PP, and the increase of the
flexural strength with increase of jute fiber. The flexural strength increases by 35%
compare to PP. (c) Similarly, both the tensile modulus and the flexural modulus
improve more or less. The improvement quantity is increasing with increase of jute
fiber for the tensile modulus and contrarily for the flexural modulus. This can be
found clearly from figure 1.
Jute Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composite 55

°O~~2~~4~~~~~~10~-1~2~-1~4~-1~6~~18

Elongation/%
FIGURE 1 The stress-elongation curve of the composites with different fiber content
Note: A presents for PP, and B, C and D present for 10%, 20%, and 30% jute/PP composite respectively

In contrast to the tensile and flexural properties, the work of impact test is found
to be pessimistic. The impact strength of the composite has a slightly decline compare
to PP. The reason for low impact strength of jute/PP composite is due to the high
bonding of the fiber with polypropylene resin, which resulted in the fracture of fiber at
the crack without any fiber pull-out.

Effect of Fiber Length

In this paper, the jute fiber was cut 3mm, 5mm and lOmm respectively. Generally
speaking, the fiber reinforced thermoplastics composite showed an increasing trend in
their mechanical properties with the fiber length. However, the flexural properties of
the composite demonstrate an unusual change. Table III shows all the variation in
tensile and flexural and impact properties of the thermoplastics composite.

Table III Effect of jute length on mechanical properties of jutelPP composite

Materials PP B C D
Tensile strengthIMPa 28.5 29.66 29.88 29.99
Tensile modulus/GPa 0.867 1.833 1.875 1.976
Flexural strength IMPa 30.16 35.8 34.68 37.7
Flexural modulus IGPa 0.776 1.334 1.184 1.365
Impact strength IJ • m· z 6.57 5.78 4.78 4.41

From Table III, the jutelPP composite shows an enhancement in their tensile
strength and modulus by increasing the fiber length from 3mm to 10mm, whereas the
flexural strength and modulus go through a decrease with the fiber length from 3mm
to 5mm and followed a significant increase with the fiber length from 5mm to lOmm.
This decreasing trend in flexural properties of the composite may be due to the jute
fiber didn't completely disperse and the fiber-to-fiber contact occurred. In terms of
56 Jute Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composite

impact strength, the change rule is approximate with effect of fiber content.

10 12 14 16 18
Elonga1ion/%
FIGURE 2 The stress-elongation curve of the composites with different fiber length
Note: This time A presents for PP, and B, C and D present for 3mm, 5mm, and 10mmjuteIPP
composite respectively
Figure 2 shows the stress-elongation curve of the composite with the change fiber
length.

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, the mechanical properties of short jute fiber reinforced PP composite
have been investigated as a function of fiber content and fiber length. The various
parameters lead to the various properties of the composite. As a consequence, the
reinforcement effect of the fiber to the resin varies widely. By comparison, the
composite with lOmm fiber length and 10% fiber weight content is improved most
obviously.

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