Improvised hand layup fabrication of alkali treated jute epoxy composites: A comparative study of positive and vacuum-assisted compaction

There lie several benefits of using fiber composites which have increased the desire for using these materials in various higher-level applications. They have been widely used in automobile sector, aerospace, sports industry, medical field, and so on. This has created a demand for better manufacturing techniques with cost-effectiveness. This work has been focused on improvising the hand layup procedure. To enhance the properties of the samples prepared by this conventional method, surface treatment was incorporated. Woven jute fiber was chemically treated with KOH under various sizing conditions. Hand layup was carried out for the samples followed by applying pressure considering two different methods; vacuum- assisted compaction and positive compaction. The jute composites prepared by the positive compaction hand layup technique were found to be better than the vacuum-assisted or negative compaction composites for the same set of sizing samples. There is a maximum increase of 32.4% in the tensile strength of treated composites prepared by positive compaction in comparison to untreated samples. On the other hand, the values of all the treated samples showed a reduction in tensile strength with a maximum decrease of 50% than the untreated sample for the negative compaction technique.