Paper Title
Flexural And Impact Characterization Of UV Treated Areca Fiber Polypropylene Composites

Abstract
Polymer based natural fiber reinforced composites are emerging as a promising new engineering material. The main advantage of natural fibers are low density, low cost, biodegradability, acceptable specific properties, availability, less wear during extracting as well as manufacturing composites. This investigation has been carried out to evaluate the interfacial bonding between fiber and polypropylene, flexural and impact properties of composite prepared by areca fibers with randomly distributed fibers. The extracted areca fibers were treated by Ultraviolet radiation to obtain better interfacial bonding between fiber and matrix. The test samples have been prepared as per ASTM standards using injection moulding technique at different fiber weight loading fractions (10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%). Flexural and impact tests have been carried out on the plain polypropylene composites and developed areca fiber-reinforced polypropylene based composites. The treated and untreated areca fiber-reinforced polypropylene composites have been modeled and analyzed by means of finite element method and compared with flexural experimental results. It has been observed that flexural and impact strength increases with increase in the fiber loading percentage when compared to plain polypropylene and untreated areca fiber composites beyond 20% for treated areca fiber composite. The present work also includes the analysis of areca fiber reinforced polypropylene composites using FEA with various fiber volume fractions and these results were validated with the experimental results. Key words- Areca Fiber, Flexural Strength, Impact Strength, Interface bonding, UV Treatment.