TITLE:
Evaluating the Structural Integrity of Fibreglass for the Manufacture of Headgears
AUTHORS:
Olusegun A. Adefuye, Nurudeen A. Raji, Rafiu O. Kuku, Timothy Oyetade, Ridwan O. Ola-Gbadamosi
KEYWORDS:
Headgears, Fibre Glass, Fibre Orientation, Polymer Composites
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Mechanical Engineering,
Vol.11 No.2,
May
26,
2021
ABSTRACT: A
composite material is made up of two phases, the matrix, and the reinforcing materials. The reinforcing material is embedded
over matrix material. The reinforcing material works to make the matrix
material harder. A fibreglass reinforced composite was developed using E-glass
fibre reinforcement and epoxy resin matrix. The composites were produced using
the hand lay-up technique with varying fibre percentage of 9%, 13% and 25% by
weight percentage of fibreglass mat at orientations of 0°, 15°, 45°, and 90° chosen at random. A 13% by weight percentage of chopped mat was also developed
for purpose of comparison. The fabricated composites were subjected to tensile
test, flexural test, impact test, punch shear test and hardness test to
ascertain the appropriate fibre contents and orientation that is optimum for
the manufacture of headgears. Analysis of Variance was carried out to determine
level of significance and percentage
contribution of the parameters. The results show that both fibre
orientation and percentage of fibre content reinforcement of have significant
influence on the strength and fracture energy of the composite .The fibre
orientation has a higher impact on the strength of the composite (79.74%) while
the percentage of fibre reinforcement has a lesser impact on the tensile
strength of the composite (20.26%). However, the fibre orientation has a lesser impact on the fracture
energy of the composite (24.54%) while the percentage of fibre
reinforcement has a higher impact on the fracture energy of the composite
(75.46%) The result from this study shows that the increase in fibre content
increases flexural strength and impact toughness of the fibreglass reinforced
composite. A fibre orientation of 90° and fibre reinforcement of 25% wt. was
determined to be optimally suitable for the manufacture of headgears.