1 INTRODUCTION

A composite can be defined as a structural material consisting two or more combined

constituents that are combined at a macroscopic level and are not soluble in each other
(Kaw, 2006). One constituent is called the reinforcing phase and the one in which it is
embedded is called the matrix. The reinforcing phase material may be in the form of fibres,
whiskers, particles, or flakes. The matrix phase materials are generally continuous.
Examples of composite systems include concrete reinforced with steel and epoxy
reinforced with graphite fibres, etc. Normally, the components can be physically identified
and exhibit an interface between one another.
Usually, a traditional high performance composite is made by one single type of
reinforcement (usually carbon fibre) and polymer matrix, which exhibits high specific
strength and stiffness, long fatigue life and high chemical resistance. However, the
ductility of this traditional composite is much lower compared with metals. Combining
different types of fibres into a polymer matrix to manufacture hybrid composite can
significantly improve the ductility of composites. The possible reason for this is that fibre
with higher strength acts as a bridge between broken fibres of lower strain to failure. A lot
of researchers have studied the mechanical performance of hybrid composites which
commonly consist of different fibre yarns or laminae of different materials, but a relatively
small amount of research reported in the literature has focused on intimately intermingled
hybrid fibre composites, which can achieve a higher failure strain than traditional
approaches. Furthermore, compared with carbon fibre /glass fibre hybrids, carbon
fibre/carbon fibre hybrids will maintain high mechanical performance as single carbon
composite but potentially its ductility could be improved by carefully design of the hybrid
configuration. In this project, different carbon fibres will be used as reinforcement with a
ductile thermoplastic matrix to manufacture intimately intermingled hybrid composites to
achieve a higher ductility than that exhibited conventional single-fibre type composites.
This optimised hybrid should have improved failure strain but maintain its high stiffness
and strength compared with single carbon fibre-reinforced composites. This will
potentially provide a model for novel high performance composite fibre approaches.
So, there is a huge scope to investigate on optimum lamination parameters like choice of
base material, different types of fabric materials, different types of binders, number of
layers and laying angles. This work has focused on these areas of investigation.

2. A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE WORK ALREADY DONE IN THE FIELD:
Acharya and Samantarai (2012) investigated the tribo potential of biomass based carbon
black filler in epoxy composite. They observed that incorporation of Rice Husk Char in to
epoxy significantly reduce abrasive wear loss.
Ndazi et al. (2007) studied chemical and physical modifications of rice husk for
use as composites panels. They found that chemical modification of rice husks by NaOH
improves the adhesion properties of rice husk in composites due to removal of surface
impurities such as silica and carboxylic compounds, which blocks reactive chemical
groups.
Studies are also available on aluminium reinforced by silicon carbide from
rice husk. The reports based on these studies says that the reinforced aluminium not only
has a good combination of room temperature specific strength and modulus and excellent
thermal stability, but it also can be processed by normal metal working technique. Such
materials are increasingly considered for aerospace applications where high stiffness and
strength to weight ratios are additional advantages.
The applications of Rice Husk Ash (RHA) as a filler in plastics is relatively
limited mainly due to polypropylene (PP). As reported for a PP composites 30, with an
increase in the RHA loading, its flexural modulus and density increases, where as its
tensile strength, breaking elongation and impact strength decreases, yet RHA still can
replace some commercial fillers.
Navinchand et al. (1987) reported the studies on polyester filled with RHA. They
have mentioned in their study reports that both the tensile and impact strength of the
resulting composites were decreased with the increase in filler loading. they have also
reported that in addition to being used in rubbers or plastics, RHA can also be used as a
filler in rubber/plastic blends.
Rozman H. D. et al. (2000) had made their studies on the effect of chemical
modification of rice husk. They found and reported that with chemical modification in the
rice husk, the reinforcing effect can be increased to an acceptable limit.
Silvia Luciana Favaro et al. (2010) studied the chemical, morphological and
mechanical analysis of rice husk/post-consumer polyethylene (PE) composites. PE and rice
husk were chemically modified to improve their compatibility in composite preparation.
They found improved fibre surface adhesion with matrix and improved mechanical
performance compared to pure polymer matrix, on the other hand no benefit is observed in
the tensile strength over the pure PE.
Garcia et al. (2007) used a combination of waste tire rubber and rice husk with
different size particles as raw materials in their research for obtaining new materials by
sintering technique so that environmental problems could be reduced.
Ayswarya et al. (2012) studied the use of RHA for property modification on high
density polyethylene (HDPE). They found and reported that RHA is a valuable reinforcing
material for HDPE and the environmental pollution arising due to RHA can also be
eliminated.
Rout and Satpathy (2012) studied mechanical and tribo-performance of rice-husk
filled glass-epoxy hybrid composites. They found that hardness, tensile modulus and
impact energy of these new class hybrid composites are enhanced with the rice husk as
filler additive whereas a steady decline of tensile and flexural properties are also observed.
Bohlooli et al. (2012) analytically investigated the compressive strength of
geopolymers with seeded fly ash and rice husk bark ash by fuzzy logic modelling. They
found that fuzzy logic can be an alternative approach for evaluating the effect of seeded
mixture of fly ash and rice husk bark ash on compressive strength values of geopolymer
specimens.
Kwon et al. (2013) investigated the flexural properties and dimensional stability of
the sandwich-structured composites comprising the rice husk particles in the core layer and
randomly aligned the wood strands in the face layers. They found that 1040% of the
strands into the face layers of the RH particleboards improved the flexural modulus and
strength.
Ahmad et al. (2012)were performed their research on using of rice husk powder as
reinforcing filler in blends of natural rubber(NR) and high density polyethylene. They
observed that the incorporation of radiated Rice Husk into NR/HDPE blends improved the
mechanical properties tensile stress and modulus and impact strength and hardness.
Mahboobeh Azadi et al. (2011) investigated the influence of the RHA on
different mechanical properties of the cured coatings (wear, hardness, and elongation). The
presence of RHA in epoxy paints can enhance wear resistance, scratch resistance, and
elongation. It seems that this type of filler in epoxy paints increases paint plasticity. The
addition of white ash is better in improving the wear resistance due to the presence of more
silica. Adding 20 wt% black ash to the pure epoxy paint lowers its friction coefficient with
respect to the white RHA. Finally, using this type of filler, which is cheap and abundant in
nature, can modify some mechanical properties of epoxy paints and also reduce air
pollution from burning rice husks. Thus, a green product can be produced in the paint
industry.
S. Mahzan et al. uses natural fibre for studying sound absorption properties. This
study investigates the use of rice-husk waste as the potential element for sound absorption
material of rice-husk reinforced composite. The study of rice husk waste material for
sound absorption purposes has been reported. The optimum percentage of rice husk was
obtained at 25%. The pattern obtained for rice husk was similar to membrane absorber
curves which are predominant at the lower frequencies. Furthermore the peaks value was
obtained at 250Hz. Comparison between virgin Polyurethane (PU) and the optimum
percentage of rice husk (25%) indicated that value of mixture is higher than virgin PU at
low frequency whereas for high frequency the virgin PU is higher. The comparison
between other natural materials also has been done for recycled rubber and wood shavings.
The result demonstrates that rice husk is superior to both materials for range 0-500Hz.
Since, rice husk is available in large amount, the potential for commercialization,
especially for low frequency sound absorbent material is possible.
Reis et al. (2011) studied experimentally the effect of cork and rice husk ash micro
particles fillers on the mechanical properties (flexural resistance, fracture toughness,
impact absorbed energy, elastic and viscous moduli) of polyester based hand moulded
composite was. Filled materials exhibit fragile behaviour and flexure strength much lower
than polyester matrix, and decreasing significantly when the filler content increases from 1
to 5%. The resistance loss is more pronounced for cork powder than for rice husk ash
filler. Fracture toughness is also much lower for the filled composites than for the polymer
matrix. Using cork powder the fracture toughness decreases significantly with filler
content, while for rice husk ash filler a slight increase was observed. Both fillers improve
absorbed impact energy, peaking about 2.5% on filler content. Better improvements were
obtained using rice husk ash powder, reaching about 30%. Both fillers increase glass
transition temperature and the maximum use temperature and also the elastic modulus
compared with observed for the polyester, reaching the modulus a peak for 2.5% of filler
content.
Yussuf et al. (2010) investigated and compared the performances of polylactic acid
(PLA)/kenaf (PLA-K) and PLA/rice husk (PLA-RH) composites in terms of
biodegradability, mechanical and thermal properties. It was found that flexural modulus of
pure PLA was increased drastically when filled with both kenaf and rice husk fibres;
however, the flexural and impact strengths declined. For composites, it was found that
kenaf composite shows better mechanical properties compare to rice husk composite. The
thermal stability of the virgin PLA was decreased by addition of kenaf and rice husk; and
the composite with rice husk fibre showed higher thermal degradation than kenaf
composite. From the results of biodegradability, it was found that addition of natural fibres
slightly improves biodegradability of PLA and kenaf has more significant effect on the
biodegradation rate, which exhibits better performances than rice husk.
Stefani et al. (2005) proposed the use of rice husk as filler for increasing the value
of recycled tire rubber. They observed that the addition of rice husk produces a decrease in
apparent activation energy for low conversions (up to 0.6). For higher conversions this
decrease was not so clearly observed.
Sisir Mantry et al. (2011) fabricated a jute-epoxy composites with reinforcement of
SiC derived from rice husk. They reported that incorporation of fillers modifies the tensile,
flexural and inter-laminar shear strength of the jute epoxy composites. They also
investigated that the presence of particulate fillers (silicon carbide) in these composites
improves their erosion wear resistance.
Y. Arao, S. Yumitori, H. Suzuki, T. Tanaka, K. Tanaka and T. Katayama did a remarkable
work on Mechanical properties of injection-molded carbon fiber/polypropylene
composites hybridized with nanofillers in the year of 2013. In this work the mechanical
properties of CF/PP hybridized with nanofillers were investigated. The strength of the
composites increased with the incorporation of MAPP because of the improvement in the
adhesion properties between fiber and matrix. It has been shown that addition of a small
amount of a nanofiller can improve not only the strength of the composite but also the
elastic modulus. Alumina, silica, and CNT have positive effects on the strength of the
composite, while the addition of clay decreases the mechanical properties. The results of
fiber pull-out tests and the observation of fracture surfaces indicated that the nanofillers
(alumina, silica, and CNT) improve the IFSS of the composite.
In the same year 2013, Samuel Rivallant, Christophe Bouvet and Natthawat
Hongkarnjanaku did a work on Failure analysis of CFRP laminates subjected to
compression after impact. Their work presented a model for the numerical simulation of
impact damage, permanent indentation and compression after impact (CAI) in CFRP
laminates. The same model was used for the formation of damage developing during both
low-velocity/low-energy impact tests and CAI tests. The different impact and CAI
elementary damage types were taken into account, i.e. matrix cracking, fiber failure and
interface delamination. Experimental tests and model results were compared, and that
comparison was used to highlight the laminate failure scenario during residual
compression tests. Finally, the impact energy effect on the residual strength was evaluated
and compared to experimental results.
Ying Zhang, Jie Shen, Qing Li, Long Pang, Quanyuan Zhang, Zushun Xu, Kelvin W.K.
Yeung and Changfeng Yi did a research in 2013 on Synthesis and characterization of
novel hyperbranched polyimides/attapulgite nanocomposites. In this work Novel
hyperbranched polyimides/attapulgite (HBPI/AT) nanocomposites were successfully
synthesized by in situ polymerization. HBPI derived from novel 2,4,6-tri[3-(4-
aminophenoxy)phenyl]pyridine (TAPP) and 2,2-bis[4-(3,4-
dicarboxyphenoxy)phenyl]propane dianhydride (BPADA). 4,40-diphenylmethane
diisocyanate (MDI) modified AT copolymerized with HBPI and the nanocomposites
formed multilinked network. Chemical structure, morphology, thermal behavior, and
mechanical properties of nanocomposites were investigated by Fourier transform infrared
spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), thermal gravimetric analysis
(TGA), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and tensile testing et.al. Results indicated
that modified AT was homogeneously dispersed in matrix and resulted in an improvement
of thermal stability, mechanical properties and water resistance of HBPI/AT
nanocomposites.
Another work was done in the year 2013 by M. Saleem, L. Toubal, R. Zitoune and H.
Bougherara on the effect of machining processes on the mechanical behavior of composite
plates with circular holes. The aim of this work was to examine the influence of two
machining processes namely conventional machining (CM) and abrasive water jet
machining (AWJM) on the mechanical behavior of composite plates under cyclic loading.
For this purpose, an experimental study using several composite plates drilled with a
cutting tool and an abrasive water jet machining was carried out. In order to study the
impact of the process of machining on the mechanical behavior, thermographic infrared
testing and fatigue cyclic tests were performed to assess temperature evolutions, stiffness
degradation, and the damage evolution in these plates. Fatigue testing results have shown
that the damage accumulation in specimens drilled with CM process was higher than the
AWJM specimens. Furthermore, the endurance limit for a composite plate drilled with CM
was approximately 10% inferior compared to specimens drilled with AWJM. This
difference can be related to the initial surface integrity after machining induced by the
difference in the mechanism of materials removal between the two processes used.

4. NOTEWORTHY CONTRUBITION IN THE FIELD OF PROPOSED WORK:
Srinivas Nunna, P Ravi Chandra, Sharad Srivastava and A K Jalan, presented a detailed
review on the factors affecting the mechanical behavior of the natural fiber based hybrid
composites. The major observations have been summarized for each factor below:
i. The mechanical properties of the hybrid composites were found to be enhanced
linearly with the volume fraction of high strength fibers up to certain maximum
value beyond which a negative hybrid effect had been observed because of
formation of agglomerates.
ii. The behavior of the hybrid composites was mainly influenced by the properties of
their extreme fiber layers. Optimum mechanical properties were found to be
obtained by placing high strength fibers as the skin layers.
iii. Treatment of natural fibers with NaOH played a major role in improving the
interfacial adhesion between fibers and matrix thus enhancing the mechanical
properties.
iv. Degradation in the mechanical properties mainly depended on the time of exposure
and temperature related to various environmental conditions.
D. Siva Prasad et al. (2012) investigated that incorporation of rice husk particles in
aluminium matrix can lead to produce low cost aluminium composites with improved
hardness and strength. These composites can find a wide applications in automotive
components like pistons, cylinder liners and connecting rods. Theses composites can also
find applications where light weight materials are required with good stiffness and
strength.
Acharya et al. (2012) observed incorporation of Rice Husk Char in to epoxy significantly
reduce abrasive wear loss. Nadazi et al. found that chemical modification of Rice Husks
by NaOH improves the adhesive properties of Rice Husk. Rout and Satpathy studied
mechanical and tribo-performance of Rice Husk filled glass-epoxy hybrid composites.
D. Siva Prasad and A Rama Krishna (2012) studied the effect of T6 heat treatment on the
damping behaviour of aluminium Rice Husk Ash composites. It was observed that
composites exhibit high damping capacities than unreinforced alloy and increases with
increase in weight % and the storage modulus increases with the addition of RHA particles
but decreases with increase in weight %.