Contents
Editors………………………………………………………….vii
Contributors……………………………………………………ix
Chapter 1 Natural Fiber Composites: Challenges and Opportunities……………….1
Faris M. Al-Oqla and S.M. Sapuan
Chapter 2 Kenaf Fiber: Structure and Properties…………………………………………23
A.H. Juliana, H.A. Aisyah, M.T. Paridah, C.C.Y. Adrian,
and S.H. Lee
Chapter 3 Adhesion Characteristics of Kenaf Fibers……………………………………37
M.T. Paridah and A.H. Juliana
Chapter 4 Kenaf Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites……………………..61
A. Khalina and N. Mohd Nurazzi
Chapter 5 Effect of Silica Aerogel on Polypropylene Reinforced
with Kenaf Core Fiber for Interior Automotive Components………..81
A.S. Harmaen, M.T. Paridah, M. Jawaid, A.M. Fariz,
and B. Asmawi
Chapter 6 Impact of Silane Treatment on the Properties of Kenaf Fiber
Unsaturated Polyester Composites……………………………………………..93
Md. Rezaur Rahman, Sinin Hamdan, and Rubiyah bt Hj Baini
Chapter 7 Effects of Material Types on the Failure Modes Crashworthiness
Parameters of Kenaf Composite Hexagonal Tubes…………………….113
M.F.M. Alkbir, S.M. Sapuan, A.A. Nuraini, and M.R. Ishak
Chapter 8 Eco-Friendly Kenaf Hybrid Materials……………………………………….129
S. Norshahida and H. Ismail
Chapter 9 Ballistic Properties of Hybrid Kenaf Composites……………………….145
R. Yahaya, S.M. Sapuan, M.R. Ishak, Z. Leman, and M. Jawaid
Chapter 10 Cellulose-Based Composites from Kenaf Fibers………………………..169
J. Sahari, M.A. Maleque, and M.L. Sanyang
Chapter 11 Development and Characterization of Kenaf Nanocomposites…….185
J. Sahari, M.A. Maleque, and M.L. Sanyang
Chapter 12 Concurrent Design of Kenaf Composite Products………………………205
M.R. Mansor and S.M. Sapuan
Index…………………………………………………………….227
1 Natural Fiber Composites Challenges and Opportunities
Faris M. Al-Oqla and S.M. Sapuan
CONTENTS
1.1 Introduction …………………………………………………1
1.2 Natural Fibers……………………………………………………3
1.3 Life Cycle Assessments of NFCs ……………….4
1.4 Major Issues in the Development of NFCs …………7
1.4.1 Water Absorption Characteristics of NFCs………………………….7
1.4.2 Compatibility of Fibers and Polymers in NFCs ……………………..9
1.4.3 Thermal Stability of Natural Fibers ……….11
1.4.4 Factors Influence the Composite Performance………………………………14
1.5 Applications of NFCs …………………….15
1.6 Future Developments …………………………….18
1.7 Summary ………………………………………….18
1.8 Conclusions………………………………………..18
References ………………………………………………19
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Infrastructural physical components are usually constructed utilizing materials from finite resources such as steel, aluminum, and reinforced concrete. It is statistically proven that buildings alone consume about half of the total resources used globally. This has led to environmental damage and depletion of available natural resources. In addition, most of the conventional building-oriented materials and constructional processes are energy-intensive to produce, and are primarily responsible for a significant amount of landfill volume, thus producing about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions (Sallih, Lescher, and Bhattacharyya 2014). Furthermore, due to population growth, an increase in the demand for conventional materials leaves a large ecological footprint.
The growing interest in long-term sustainability, as well as awareness of environmental issues, has emphasized the proper utilization of natural resources by new environmental regulations. This has resulted in changing public and governmental attitudes and has stimulated considerable advancements in natural composite materials. Natural fiber composites (NFCs) have been recently highlighted in various industrial applications and have been slowly replacing conventional materials based upon several factors. (Abral et al. 2014; Agoudjil et al. 2011; Ahuja, Mir, and Kumar 2007; AL-Oqla and Sapuan 2014b; Almagableh, AL-Oqla, and Omari 2017).
Proper material selection has become pivotal in engineering to attain successful and sustainable design, as well as customer satisfaction attributes (AL-Oqla and Sapuan 2014b; Alves et al. 2010a). Moreover, the implementation of new materials in the industrial sector is usually limited by several constrains and limitations, such as the inherent relationship between the materials and their availability, cost, compatibility with the product design, machinability, recyclability, and performance in the final product form. This makes compromising these constraints, advantages, and disadvantages in selecting materials an intricate matter, where proper decisions have to be made concerning modern techniques like optimization methods, informative decisions, and expert systems utilizing the pairwise comparisons. (Dweiri and Al-Oqla 2006; AL-Oqla and Hayajneh 2007; Al-Oqla and Omar 2012; Al-Oqla and Omar 2014; Al-Widyan and Al-Oqla 2011, 2014; Dalalah, Al-Oqla, and Hayajneh 2010; Dieter 1997; Jahan 2010). In comparison to conventional composites, NFCs have greater specific strength and stiffness, better resistance to corrosion, greater fatigue strength and impact absorption capacities, recyclability, adaptability to hazardous environments, lower life-cycle costs, and non-toxicity (Dittenber and GangaRao 2011; Faruk et al. 2012a; AL-Oqla, Sapuan, Ishak, and Aziz 2014). Such advantages of NFCs resulted from the advantages of their constituents (fillers and polymers) particularly the natural fibers that have major advantages over traditional glass fibers. Such advantages include low cost, energy recovery, good thermal and acoustical insulation characteristics, availability, degradability, CO2 sequestration enhancements, reduced dermal and respiratory irritation, and reduced tool wear in machining operations (Kalia 2011b; Faruk et al. 2012b; Alves et al. 2010b; Mir et al. 2010; Pickering et al. 2007; Sarikanat 2010). The features, as well as the performance of products, made from NFCs strongly depend upon the properties of their individual constituents and their compatibility as well as the polymer/filler interfacial characteristics that expand the possibilities of producing various exciting new materials with entirely new qualities (AL-Oqla, Sapuan et al. 2015; Al-Oqla and Sapuan 2015a).
The growing use of natural fiber reinforced polymer composites instead of synthetic fiber composites may provide even several long-term benefits to the overall sustainability, cleaner production theme, and infrastructure management (Al-Oqla, Sapuan, Ishak et al. 2015a, 2015b). However, there is uncertainty of performance associated with variability in natural fiber properties (AL-Oqla, Sapuan, Ishak et al. 2015b; AL-Oqla and Sapuan 2015b; AL-Oqla, Sapuan, Ishak, and Aziz 2014). This requires careful study of selecting the most high performance manufacturing for such types of composites under controlled conditions to achieve more reliable and better designed data (AL-Oqla, Sapuan, Ishak, and Aziz 2014; AL-Oqla, Sapuan, Ishak et al. 2015c).
1.2 NATURAL FIBERS
The use of agricultural raw material sources in the plastic industry would provide a renewable source of materials as well as generate non-food sources of economic development for several countries for long-term commercial development, where there must be a guaranteed long-term resource supply. Nature has offered humanity various types of natural fibers available in a wide range of colors, sizes, and shapes. Natural fibers can be classified regarding their origin as bast, leaf, fruit, and seed-hair fibers. This is illustrated in Figure 1.1. Various natural fiber types are available and suitable for natural fibers, including wood, bagasse, oil palm, pineapple leaf, date palm, cotton, rice straw, flax, hemp, rice husk, wheat straw, curaua, coir, doum fruit, ramie, jowar, kenaf, bamboo, sisal, rapeseed waste, and jute (Jawaid and Abdul Khalil 2011; AL-Oqla, Othman et al. 2014). Natural fibers are emerging as lightweight, available, low-cost, eco-friendly alternatives to glass fibers in composites.