Abstract

Banana fibers obtained from the stem of banana plant (Musa sapientum) have been characterised for their diameter variability and their mechanical properties, with a stress on fracture morphology. The nature of representative stress strain curves and fracture at different strain rates have been analysed through SEM.

Introduction

Natural fibers present important advantages such as low density, appropriate stiffness and mechanical properties and high disposability and renewability. Moreover, they are recyclable and biodegradable. There has been lot of research on use of natural fibers in reinforcements. Banana fiber, a ligno-cellulosic fiber, obtained from the pseudo-stem of banana plant (Musa sepientum), is a bast fiber with relatively good mechanical properties.

The "pseudo-stem" is a clustered, cylindrical aggregation of leaf stalk bases. Banana fiber at present is a waste product of banana cultivation and either not properly utilized or partially done so. The extraction of fiber from the pseudostem is not a common practice and much of the stem is not used for production of fibers. This is reflected from the relatively expensive price of banana fibres (Table I) when compared to other natural fibres. The buyers for banana fibers are erratic and there is no systematic way to extract the fibres regularly. Useful applications of such fibres would regularize the demand which would be reflected in a fall of the prices.

Price of different natural fibres

*The price at which the author sourced the fibers from two different places in India.

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About the Authors:

The authors: Samrat Mukhopadhyay and Raul Fangueiro are associated with the University of Minho, Portugal and Yusuf Arpa and lk Şentrk are associated with the Ege University, Turkey.

 

The article was originally published in Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics Volume 3, Issue 2-2008 http://www.jeffjournal.org