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Procedia Engineering 41 (2012) 1667 – 1673

International Symposium on Robotics and Intelligent Sensors 2012 (IRIS 2012)

Fracture Toughness Investigation on Long Kenaf/Woven Glass Hybrid

Composite Due To Water Absorption Effect

Z.Salleh*, Y. M. Taib, Koay Mei Hyie, M.Mihat, M.N. Berhan, M.A.A. Ghani
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Abstract

Water absorption of natural fiber composite is of serious concerned especially for outdoor application. In this study, long
kenaf/woven glass hybrid composite is fabricated in-house using cold press technique. The effect of water absorption on
the hybrid composites is investigated at room temperature under three different environmental conditions, i.e. distilled
water, rain water, and sea water. The moisture absorption amount is obtained by calculating the different percentage weight
before and after the immersion process. The moisture content is found to exhibit non-Fickian behaviour regardless of three
different conditions. Liquid exposure of long kenaf/woven glass hybrid composite deteriorates the fracture toughness due to
the weakening of interface between fiber and matrix. There are also several recognized modes of humidity aging found
through SEM observation.

© 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Centre of
Humanoid Robots and Bio-Sensor (HuRoBs), Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Keywords: kenaf; hybrid composite; distilled water; rain water; sea water.

1. Introduction

In material science, there are many types of composite material designed in order to enhance and maximise the strength
of the final products. Most common type of fibre reinforced composite used in heavy industry are glass and carbon fibres
reinforced thermoset composites due to their superior properties [1]. However, these two types of fibres have detrimental
effects on human health and environment. Hence, there is a need to replace these synthetic fibres with others that are
environmental friendly without sacrificing the strength and stiffness offered by these composites. The use of natural plant
fibers as reinforcement in fiber-reinforced plastics is receiving more attention recently, because of their advantages such as
renewability, low density, and high specific strength [2]. Natural fiber reinforced composite can be relatively strong, and
lightweight, free from health hazards and biodegradable. It has high potential to be used as building materials [3, 4].

Essentially it is very difficult to prevent defects in the materials. Thus design of the composite materials with defects or
cracks require the relation between the strength of a material, its fracture energy or toughness and the size of the crack.
Relationship between these factors under adverse environmental exposure is the key to develop a more reliable automotive,
aerospace and ocean engineering hardware. The major concerned is due to prolong exposure to low or high temperature and
immersion in saline water, acidic water and organic fuel. Hence, understanding the fracture toughness of fiber reinforced
composite materials when exposed to these environments has assumed greater importance [5, 6].

____________________________________________________
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +603-55436209; fax: +603-55435160.
E-mail address: a_kzue@yahoo.com

1877-7058 © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.07.366
1668 Z. Salleh et al. / Procedia Engineering 41 (2012) 1667 – 1673

Fracture toughness is a property which describes the ability of a material containing a crack to resist fracture, and is one
of the important properties of any material for damage tolerance design. Among the natural fiber reinforcing material, kenaf
is relatively inexpensive and commercially available. Kenaf fiber is obtained from stems of plants genus Hibiscus, family of
Malvaceae and the species of Hibiscus cannabinus. It is a common wild plant of tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia.

Crack resistance of natural fibers composites can be further enhanced by hybriding with synthetic fibers. The present
work introduces long kenaf with glass fibers to form the hybrid composites. The works would address the amount of glass
fibers required to improve the crack resistance of the kenaf fiber reinforced composite when exposed to different types of
environments.

2. Experimental

2.1 Materials

Long kenaf supplied by Innovative Pultration Sdn. Bhd. as-received without any surface treatment. Unsaturated
polyester resins were provided by Mostrong Industries Sdn. Bhd. The woven fibreglass was supplied by a local company.

2.2 Preparation of hybrid composite

Long kenaf/woven glass hybrid composites laminates were fabricated by using a combination of hand lay-up and
compression moulding method. A steel frame mould of size 300 mm x 210 mm was used in making laminates. The top
cover of the mould has provision such that the desired thicknesses of about 3 mm laminates were produced. The steel frame
mould was covered with plastic film to ensure smooth surface finish and easy removal of the laminate.
The matrix material was made by mixing the general purpose polyester resin and catalyst at a weight ratio of 100 to 2.
The hybrid composite was cold pressed at approximately 10kN load and hold for 20 minutes at room temperature to ensure
homogeneity of the laminate without any air bubbles. Finally, the successful specimen was cured for two days at room
temperature.

2.3 Water absorption investigation

The water absorption study was performed in accordance to ASTM D 5229. The specimens were immersed in three
different aqueous environments namely, distilled water, sea water and acidic rain water. The specimens were immersed in
1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks and 4 weeks at room temperature. The weight change was then recorded and monitored
periodically. The percentage of water absorption in the composites was calculated by determining the weight difference
between samples immersed in water and dry samples using the following equation:

ሾ୛౟ ି୛౜ ሿ
W (%) = x 100% (1)
୛౟

where W (%) is the moisture content in percentage; Wf is the weight of the wet sample at certain time; Wi is the initial
weight of the sample.

2.4 Fracture and tensile test

The fracture and tensile test of the specimens was carried out using Instron machine. The specimens were prepared in
accordance to the standard BS 7448:1(Fig. 1) except for the thickness requirement. The single edge notch bend specimens
(SENB) were initially pre-crack using sharp razor blade. Five specimens were tested for each condition to minimize the
error during testing.

Fig. 1. Dimension for SENB specimens (BS 7448:1).

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2.5 Morphological assessment

The samples for dynamic mechanical analysis were cut and analyzed in a SUPRA 40 VP (Carl Zeiss) of Field Emission
Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM). The samples were coated with gold conductive coating. The surface morphology
of kenaf fibreglass hybrid composite was conducted to ascertain interface damages prior to fracture.

3. Results and discussions

3.1 Water absorption analysis

Table 1. Effect of water immersion to the moisture content of long kenaf/woven glass hybrid composite.

Moisture Content (%)

1st Day 1st Week 2nd Week 3rd Week 4th Week
Rain Water 3.38 3.75 8.53 10.95 9.87
Distilled Water 4.41 4.86 8.60 9.99 7.35
Sea Water 3.85 5.52 6.64 9.01 6.70

Table1 shows the maximum moisture content of long kenaf/ woven glass hybrid composite. It is clear that the moisture
content increases with immersion time. This finding is similar to previous reports concerning other types of natural fiber
reinforced composites [7, 8]. It is interesting that, the weight gain of specimen immersed in sea water is almost similar to the
weight gain of specimen immersed in distilled water after three weeks of immersion. The highest moisture content is
10.95% for specimen immersed in rain water after three weeks. The weight gain of the long kenaf/ woven glass hybrid
composite immersed in sea water is the lowest. This phenomenon is due to the presence of ionic salt in the sea water,
blocking the diffusion path after a long exposure, thus slowing down the absorption process [9]. After the third week of sea
water exposure, the surface of the specimen turned dark and pink colored particles precipitate from the specimens. This
might be due to the extraction of soluble materials which may cause a loss in weight of the specimen [4]. In general, the
water absorption behaviour of long kenaf/ woven glass hybrid composite in all three solutions can be considered as a non-
Fickian diffusion process. Similar observations have been reported by Hazizan et. al. [4].

3.2 Single Edge Notch Bend (SENB) results

Maximum load of the SENB test for the long kenaf/ woven glass hybrid composites after immersion in various
environmental conditions are tabulated in Table 2.

Table 2. Maximum fracture load of hybrid composite in fracture test.

Maximum Load (kN)

1st day 1st week 2nd week 3rdweek 4thweek

Distilled water 0.2204 0.2186 0.1326 0.1496 0.1936

Rain water 0.2326 0.1804 0.1672 0.1776 0.1732

Sea water 0.2052 0.1842 0.1434 0.1822 0.1822

In dry conditions, composite will be failed by both matrix and fiber cracking [10, 11]. The fibre reinforced matrix
interface may fracture in shear and finally lead to an ultimate failure [12]. The maximum load above is for identical SENB
specimen with almost equal pre-crack length at various conditions. The decrease of maximum flexure load is not consistent
1670 Z. Salleh et al. / Procedia Engineering 41 (2012) 1667 – 1673

with respect to the immersion time. This is attributed to the water penetrability. The capillary action becomes active as the
water penetrating into the interface through the voids induced by swelling of the kenaf fibres.

3.3 Load vs extension for SENB test

The load vs extension of the fracture test is depicted in Fig. 2 to Fig. 4. All specimens in this case have similar
dimensions and pre-crack length. The curve also exhibits some extent of ductility before final fracture. The lowest load
recorded on the hybrid composite immersed in two weeks for most case.

The load decreases as absorption and moisture content time increases. The matrix polyester plasticises and become weaker
due to the effect of water absorption. As the load is further increase the material could no longer sustain it and finally it
breaks. It was reported [4] that formation of hydrogen bonding between cellulose fibre and water molecules can deteriorate
the strength of the composite. Figure 5 summarises the maximum load attained by the specimen immersed in different
environmental conditions. The ionic salt and contaminant in the seawater and rain water block the diffusion path and thus
slows down the absorption process [9]. Therefore, the specimen immersed in distilled water give the maximum result if
compared to the specimen immersed in sea water and rain water.

Fig. 2. Load vs extension for SENB test (distilled water).

Fig. 3. Load vs extension for SENB test (rain water).

 Z. Salleh et al. / Procedia Engineering 41 (2012) 1667 – 1673 1671

Fig. 4. Load vs extension for SENB test (sea water).

250
Maximum Load, (N)

200

150 Distilled Water

100 Rain Water
50 Sea Water

0
1 day 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 week
Immersion Time

Fig. 5. Maximum Load vs Immersion Time for SENB test.

3.4 Fracture toughness

Table 3 presents the critical stress intensity factor (KC) of kenaf/woven glass hybrid composites at various environmental
conditions. It is shown that the KC decreases with increment of immersion time until third week and slightly decreases at
forth week. For specimen immersed in distilled water and sea water, the recorded lowest value of KC is at the second week
however Kc increases after the second week. The apparent cause of fracture toughness degradation is due to the small
amount of water absorb through the voids and and cracks, which damage the fibre exposed [13]. Thus, there is a
significantly reduction in fibre-matrix strength and in fracture toughness.The water absorption by the matrix polyester
induces swollen and plasticise, which contributes to early failure.

Table 3. Critical Stress Intensity Factor of long kenaf/woven glass hybrid composite.

Critical Stress Intensity Factor, KC (MPa√mm)

1st day 1st week 2nd week 3rd week 4th week
Distilled Water 249.3 235.9 151.6 177.0 218.4
Rain Water 252.1 192.2 216.0 200.2 199.4
Sea Water 231.9 189.3 167.1 170.0 210.8
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3.5 SEM Micrographs

The scanning electron micrographs of long kenaf/woven glasshybrid is illustrated in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7. It is clearly seen
that a pre-crack in the SENB specimens. The distance of pre-crack shown in Fig. 5 is about 0.47mm, which is very close to
the maximum value of pre-crack (0.5 mm) for single edge notch bending specimen (SENB) in standard BS 7448:1 [14].
The surface failure is contributed by matrix fracture, fiber-matrix debonding, fiber pull-out and fiber fracture. The poor
fiber/ matrix interfacial bonding encourages debonding and fiber pull-out and finally results in surface failure.

Fiberglass Fiber Fracture

471.3μm

Fiber Pull-Out Matrix Fracture

Fig. 6. SEM micrographonfracture suface of long kenaf/woven glasss hybrid composite before immersion.

Fig. 7. SEM micrograph on fracture surface of long kenaf/ woven glass hybrid composite after immersion.

The humidity aging is widely recognized as one of the main causes of long-term failure of an organic matrix exposed to
the atmosphere or in contact with an aqueous media. There are several recognized modes of humidity aging, namely matrix
plasticization, differential swelling related to concentration gradients, embrittlement linked to the degradation of the macro
molecular skeleton by hydrolysis, osmotic cracking, hygrothermic shock with change of water state, and a damage localized
matrix/fiber interface [15]. Additionally, humidity aging also causes undesirable effects to the fracture toughness properties
and dimensional stability of composites.
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4. Conclusions

The effect of water absorption on mechanical properties of long kenaf/woven glass hybrid composite has been
successfully investigated. The rates of the moisure uptake by the composties increases with immersion time and exhibit non-
Fickian behavior. Exposure of the natural fiber composite material to environmental conditions such as distilled water, sea
water and rain water results in decreasing of fracture toughness. The decrement of the fracture toughness may be due to the
water absorption characteristic depends on the content of the fiber, fiber orientation, area of exposed surface, permeability
of fiber, void content and the hydrophilicity of the individual component.

Acknowledgement

Financial support from the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme [600-RMI/ST/FRGS 5/3/Fst (167/2010)] is gratefully
acknowledged. Z. Salleh would like to thank Kementerian Pengajian Tinggi (KPT) and Universiti Teknologi MARA
(UiTM) for her PhD scholarship.

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