Effects of natural reinforcement agents on mechanical performance of composite materials

Composite materials are one of the prominent and popular topics of materials science in recent years. Unlike alloys, in composite materials, there is a physical interaction between at least two different materials without a chemical interaction. These materials basically consist of a matrix element which acts as a body by providing toughness and ductility to the material and holding the structure together and a reinforcement element that gives hardness and durability to the material. In recent years, different natural fibers which are renewable, recyclable and cost effective have been started to be used instead of synthetic fibers (glass, carbon etc.) which have been widely used as reinforcement element. In this study, production of polymer matrix composite materials which contains various natural fibers (jute and cotton) as reinforcement elements by vacuum assisted resin transfer molding method was achieved. Polymer composites which have five different configurations by stacking jute and cotton fabrics layer by layer were generated and the experimental results of tensile test, impact test, hardness test, water absorption capacity test, scanning electron microscope analysis were compared with pure jute and pure cotton reinforced polymer composites.