Numerical simulation of jute fabric-reinforced polypropylene composites

R.P. LIMA; B. A. ACHA; K. J. NAGAHAMA; M. M. REBOREDO; N. E. MARCOVICH

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Conferencia; Internacional Conference on Science and Technology, COMAT 2005; 2005

Modern tools of analysis, used to design high-performance composites are not useful to model natural fiber composites. Many experimental results are still necessary to obtain the mechanical properties of these materials. Thus, the purpose of this work was to study the stress-strain behavior of composites made from bidirectional jute fabric-polypropylene by numerical composing the tensile test. The strategy was to model the tensile specimen body and simulate the test by the application of displacement on one of its extremities, considering the other one fixed. Experimental results were used to validate the numerical analysis. It was found that finite element analysis can be used to predict the tensile behavior of jute fabric reinforced polypropylene composites. The calculated curves were in good agreement with experimental results at low deformation, but showed more discrepancies as the strain increases.