Original Articles: 2014 Vol: 6 Issue: 11
Characterization of Kenaf fibre reinforced composites
Abstract
The rapidly expanding usage of composite components in automotive, construction, sports and leisure has attracted attention on continuous production techniques with the optimum properties. One of the techniques for manufacturing structural profiles from composites is pultrusion process. Pultruded composites are traditionally manufactured using thermosetting resin systems. These profiles are produced by pulling a carefully specified mass of wetted-out reinforcement material through a heated metal die containing a cavity of the desired cross-section. The intention of this project is to study the locally available kenaf fiber which is much cheaper than synthetic fibers such as glass, aramid and carbon fibers in an attempt to reduce the cost of producing composites and hence become more competitive than conventional materials such as galvanized steel and etc.