Effects of Particle Size on Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fruit Bunch Composites

Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) reinforced composite is an emerging area in polymer
technology. EFB is a low cost filler with low density, high specific properties as well as
being nonabrasive. The objective of the work reported is to study the effect of particle size on
mechanical properties (flexural and tensile properties) of EFB-polyethylene composites.
Three different particle sizes of EFB have been prepared using 0-150 Jlm, 150-300 Jlm, and
300-425 Jlm. Five formulations of varying content of EFB have been prepared for each filler
sizes (0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%). Flexural and tensile test has been carried out to determine
the mechanical properties of the composites.
For all three filler sizes, tensile strength decrease gradually with increase in EFB fiber
content. However, both tensile and flexural modulus showed no significant improvement because
the modulus had to be calculated manually and subjected to human error but there were part of
tbe result showed considerable improvement.
Samples have also been subjected to microstructure observation using scanning electron
microscopy (SEM). From the morphology, it showed that the fiber and matrix interface is
very low thus the stress concentration is high. Besides, irregular orientation of the fiber
distribution have resulted small improvement of mechanical properties. Particle size is
important to achieve good combination of mechanical properties.