M. Nithiyakumar
Lecturer, Department of Textile Technology,
SSM Academy of Textiles & Management, Erode.
mnithiyakumar@gmail.com

D. Gopalakrishnan
Lecturer, South India Institute of Fashion Technology,
229 A, Sathya Moorthi Road,
Ramnagar, Coimbatore – 641 009,
textilesamurai@rediffmail.com

Because of excellent characteristics, such as low weight or high strength and stiffness, fibre-reinforced composites have found a large dispersal in several areas of technical applications. However, because of increasing environmental consciousness and demands of legislative authorities, the manufacture, use, and removal of traditional composite structures, commonly using synthetic fibre materials such as glass, carbon, or aramid, are considered more critically. For that reason the substitution of the traditionally used synthetic fibre materials by natural fibres has become an emerging area of interest and development in polymer science and industrial applications. Despite ecological gains, like less environmental impact of the later product within the formation, usage, and disposal period, further technical and economical benefits result from this strategy. To improve the performance and durability of timber structures, fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are increasingly being used as reinforcements for wood. Current applications of wood reinforcement have focused on the use of FRP strips or fabrics bonded to wood members.

In this competitive world, engineers must find the high performance natural composite structures. To assist that there are so many Computer Aided Engineering tools are utilized. ANSYS 9.0 is the one of the successful Finite Element Modeling software. It is very flexible to design the composite models and to analyze them. In this work, three numbers of coir reinforced wooden ply boards are obtained from a manufacturer. They are with three different thicknesses and three types of layer configurations. The tensile stress, deflection and the density values are studied. With the ANSYS 9.0 software five different models are developed and the tensile stress and deforming behavior are analyzed. The input data like density, young’s modulus, shear modulus and poison’s ratio are given to construct the models. Among the five models, two models are Phenolic jute and coir reinforced wooden composites. In these models one wooden layer is eliminated.

There is very large tensile stress value difference between the original boards and the developed models. But the deformation characteristics are same for the both. It is found that there are so many manufacturing faults in the obtained models and the results from the ANSYS 9.0 are theoretical values. By considering these aspects, it could be correlated with the result values. According to the ANSYS 9.0, it is suggested that jute reinforced composites show the good improvement in tensile stress in lower thickness. The inclusion of jute reinforcement could eliminate one layer of wood and it is advantageous for reduced weight and higher aesthetic values.