Thermal properties and fire resistance of jute reinforced composites

LILIANA B. MANFREDI; EXEQUIEL S. RODRIGUEZ; MARÍA WLADYKA-PRZYBYLAK; ANALÍA VÁZQUEZ

Zalakatos, Hungría

Conferencia; Eurofillers 2007 (Functional fillers for Advanced Aplications); 2007

The Budapest University of Technology and Economics

In recent years, natural fiber reinforced composites have attracted substantial attention as a potential structural material for low cost applications. Natural fibers offer good opportunities as reinforcement materials for composites, because they are strong, light in weight, cheap, abundant and renewable. Several researches have been made on the use of natural fibers as reinforcing agents in thermoset and thermoplastic polymers. In a previous work (1) we obtained natural fiber / thermoset composites with acceptable mechanical properties. But in other work (2) we observed that those materials had a significant lower fire resistance than the glass fiber reinforced composites. The objective of the present work is to improve the fire resistance of natural fiber composites by using matrices with better thermal performance. Among the natural fibers, jute is of particular interest due to its easy availability, renewable resource, low price and low density leading to high specific strength. Also, jute composite have shown better thermal and fire resistance than other natural fibers used in the previous work (2). Phenolic resins have been widely used as glass fiber reinforced composite matrices due to their flame resistance, in addition with their excellent dimensional stability and chemical resistance. The drawback of this resin is its fragility. On other hand, it was observed that the addition of inorganic nanoreinforcement to polymers enhanced their mechanical properties and thermal resistance (3). Vinylester resins are commonly used with natural reinforcements because of their good compatibility with the fibers, their low viscosity and good mechanical properties. Then, the aim of this work is to study the fire resistance, smoke evolution, thermal and flexural properties of jute reinforced composites using different thermoset and nanoreinforced matrices. The performance of a jute reinforced phenolic resin was characterized and compared with that of a composite with vinylester, which is the commonly used matrix. Additionally, clay was added to the phenolic matrix in order to enhance their properties.