TITLE:
Experimental Study on Optimization of Thermal Properties of Natural Fibre Reinforcement Polymer Composites
AUTHORS:
Ramesh Chandra Mohapatra
KEYWORDS:
Rice Husk Particles, Polymer Resin, Thermal Properties, Taguchi Technique, Guarded Heat Flow Meter, ASTME-1530
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.5 No.4,
April
29,
2018
ABSTRACT: In the present work, an experimental approach was used to find out the thermal conductivity of rice husk filled polymer composites using guarded heat flow meter method in accordance with ASTME-1530 standard. The result shows that the incorporation of rice husk reduces the thermal conductivity of polymer resin and improves its insulation capability. At last, an attempt has been made to optimize the thermal properties of rice husk reinforced polymer composites (RHPC) materials using Taguchi technique. In this work, the ANOM results showed that the combination of rice husk particle size of 250 μm with volume fraction of filler material (45%) with vinyl ester as the matrix material was beneficial for minimizing the thermal properties of rice husk particles reinforced polymer composites and the degree of contribution of the parameters to the system were volume fraction > particle size > polymer resin. From ANOVA results, it was found out that the % of filler material has major influence (79.588%) on minimizing thermal conductivity and the particle size has less effect (1.126). Finally, the results revealed that using rice husk particles as reinforcement for polymer matrix could successfully develop beneficial composites and can be used for thermal applications.