MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF EPOXY COMPOSITE REINFORCED WITH WASTE AND VIRGIN ACRYLICS

Acrylic waste fibres, yarns and fabrics were used as the reinforcement in the production of epoxy composites. Composite samples were also produced using virgin acrylic fibres, yarns and fabrics as reinforcement. Waste (used) fabrics were disintegrated by rag tearing machine into fibre form and spun into yarns. The yarns were then woven into plain weave fabrics. The waste and virgin fibres, yarns and fabrics were characterized for tensile strength before using them to produce the composites. Hand lay-up technique was used for the composites fabrication. The composites were analyzed for tensile strength, impact strength and flexural strength. It was observed that the waste fibre, yarn and fabric reinforced composites produced compete favorably with their virgin counterparts even though the virgin composites had higher values of tensile strength. The results obtained show that virgin fibre has higher tensile strength (19.12 g/Tex) compared to waste fibre (18.69 g/Tex). Virgin yarn has higher tenacity (0.15 N/Tex). Fabric strength results show that virgin fabric has higher tenacity (1.23 N/Tex) than waste fabric (0.31 N/Tex).