Characterization of calotropis gigantea continuous twisted bast fibre yarn

Abstract

Green engineering is essential in the wake of global warming and progressive environmental degradation. Considering this, most of the engineering application-oriented industries have started the use of natural fibre composites which decompose readily compared with artificial fibres. But the primary limitation of natural fibre to replace artificial fibre in engineering applications is it s hydrophilic. Hence natural fibres are must be treated with any of the physical and chemical treatments (surface treatments) to reduce its moisture uptake. Different natural fibres adapt different treatments with different concentrations to produce optimum mechanical properties with relevant to ingredients present in the natural fibres such as Cellulose, Hemicellulose and Lignin. The second drawback of natural fibres is, it is available in the short form hence it is not possible to produce continuous structures. In the present study, the above said drawbacks are addressed with a Calotropis gigantea natural fibre which is available abundantly in the south Asian countries. CG fibre extracted from the plant stem bast area by retting process and twisted as a continuous long fibre yarn. Surface treatment of CG fibre done with NaOH solution and the optimum concentration of NaOH found using new techniques. Later Optimised CG fibre reinforced in the Araldite matrix and characterised by finding mechanical properties such as newlinetensile and flexural properties. Due to its continuous form, an attempt has been made to produce a coil structure and validated with basic mechanical properties. The microstructure of the coil also analysed using Energy dispersion X-ray analysis newline newline