International Review of Mechanical Engineering (I.RE.M.E.), Vol. 8, N.

1
ISSN 1970 - 8734
January 2014

Material Properties of Random Oriented Pressed Mat

Coir Fibre/ Epoxy Composites
Mohd Amirul Abdul Rahman, Munaim Ali Omar Baki,
Azmin Shakrine Mohd Rafie, Renuganth A/L Vartharajoo
Abstract The material mechanical properties of coir fibre/epoxy composite were evaluated.
High increase in consumption of coconut fruit for food processing and other industrial usage
nowadays lead to increase in th production of coconut trash in the form of coir fibre. These coir
fibres mostly disposed as unwanted waste since there are not much further applications to utilize
the coir fibres. Furthermore, the aerospace industries currently are looking for more to optimize
the performance of the existing materials (e.g. metal and synthetic fibre composite) that would be
introduced in aircraft structure which relatively cut the cost in production, maintenance, and inservice aircraft, eco-friendly, and low in weight factor. Therefore, natural fibre reinforce
composite might be recommender answers to solve these existing problems whereby this solution
already been introduced in the automotive and civil application. The existing raw coir fibres used
are in the form of pressed mat and originally in the random oriented fibre form. They have been
used directly in the compression moulding process together with different fibre weight ratio of
20% to 50% with epoxy resins under room temperature and controlled pressure for composite
fabrication process. The fibres underwent no modification at all. Then the fabricated panels have
undergone mechanical material tests; tensile, flexural and torsion test with accordance to ASTM
standard to obtain mechanical properties of the material including tensile strength, tensile
modulus and shear modulus. These properties data will be recorded and might be used for further
analysis such as aeroelastic analysis. The results shown the composite with the higher fibre
percentage being more flexible (higher tensile strength) and less than 50% of fibre loading, rigid
composites were obtained. Copyright 2014 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved.

Keywords: Coconut Coir Fibre, Material Mechanical Properties, Natural Fibre Composites,
Epoxy Resin, Random Oriented Fibre Composite

I.

This growing environmental concern also might

attract the aerospace industries in the future for their
application of green technology ranging from design and
manufacturing to in-service aircraft. In addition, other
criteria that would affect aircraft performance such as
weight and cost reduction also would be taken into
account particularly in the material selection process for
aircraft primary structure. Coir fibre is the one of natural
fibres that abundantly available in tropical regions
including India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Malaysia [1].
Brown fibre that extracted from matured coconuts are
thicker, stronger, and higher abrasion resistance
compared to white fibre that extracted from immature
coconuts. Brown fibre is mostly used in engineering and
research applications and normally available in semifinished product forms namely bristle (long fibres),
mattress (relatively short), and decorticated (mixed
fibres) [2].
The benefits of coir fibres include provide excellent
insulation against temperature and sound, not easily
combustible, flame-retardant, unaffected by moisture and
dampness, tough and durable, resilient, spring back to

Introduction

The introduction of natural fibre in the design and

fabrication of composite could be added up as the
advantage especially in term of the utilization of green
technology and low in cost material in the modern
aircraft design process.
Natural fibres such as coconut fibres are the fibres that
extracted originally from coconut plant. The increment in
consumptions of coconut fruit for food processing and
other industrial usage in the presence day lead to increase
in the production of non-recyclable coconut trash in the
form of coconut husks.
Therefore, any recommended utilization of this waste
coir fibre that extracted from coconut husks might be
seen as a good respond to make use this abundantly
available raw material. Until presence day, they have
been used for a several applications including civil and
mechanical structures.
Nowadays, they might regard as one of the
significance value in commercial sector since the rapid
growth in public awareness towards the utilization of
environmental friendly materials.
Manuscript received and revised December 2013, accepted January 2014

89

Copyright 2014 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved

Mohd Amirul Abdul Rahman et al.

shape even after constant use, totally static free, and easy
to clean [2]. Epoxy resin (thermoset resin group) is one
of the commonly used matrix materials and have the
advantages of low in densities, good corrosion resistance,
low thermal and electrical conductivities, translucence,
and aesthetis colour effects while the limitations of them
are low in transverse strength and operational
temperature limits [3]-[4].
In addition, the curing time of epoxy resin is much
higher than polyester resins and it has a greater binding
property. In case of coir fibre reinforced composites,
there are several reported works done on them. Arylmis
et al. [5] worked on preparation of coir composite panel
for automotive interior applications. He found the
optimal use of composite contents for that specific
purpose are 60% wt coir fibre, 37% PP powder, and 3%
MAPP.
Mujahid et al. [6] came out with the dynamic
characteristics of the coconut coir fibre reinforced
composite are greatly dependent on the volume
percentage of fibre by using experimental modal analysis
[EMA] on the composite sample but the increase of
fibres will make composite tend to have low stiffness and
ductility. Aireddy et al [7] studied coir dust reinforced
epoxy matrix composites of different compositions. The
experimental results shown that, the abrasive wear
resistance of the composite depends on the coir dust
concentration, sliding distance, and applied normal load.
The abrasive wear resistance decreased with increased
in normal load and coir dust concentration. Lai et al. [8]
have done the experiment on coir fiber-reinforced
polypropylene composite and has found out the
composite with treated coir fiber have a higher tensile
modulus and greater flexural strength than untreated one.
Verma et. al [4] state that chemical modifications are
commonly considered to optimize the interfacial
properties between natural fibre and polymer matrix
because of the hydrophilic nature of natural fibers.
However, the others research done on fiber treatment had
reported that the usual fiber treatments so far did not
significantly modify the mechanical performance of coirpolyester composites as reviewed by Monteiro [9].
Razzoqi et. al [12] have studied the influence of
compression pressure on mechanical properties of
ceramic matrix composite and found out that the
mechanical properties improved for all composites
generally at increasing of compressing pressure. Lynda
and Faycal [13] investigated the effects of shear
deformation on the natural frequencies of antisymmetric
cross-ply and angle-ply laminated composite plates.
The shear deformation showed a considerable effect
on the natural frequencies for composite plates. Bourouis
and Mili [14] studied the effect of the fibre orientation on
static failure of composite sandwich beams
carbon/epoxy, kevlar epoxy, glass epoxy of stacking
- 3s, [0/90] 3s and [45/-45] 3s.
They found out that the sandwich beams with
carbon/epoxy, and glass epoxy face sheets shows the best
characteristics compared to kevlar/epoxy which facing

low mechanical resistance in both tensile and

compressive. The purposes of this research are to
evaluate and establish preliminary data for material
mechanical properties from standard mechanical test;
tensile, flexural and torsion test on the random
oriented and non-modify pressed mat coir fibre/epoxy
composite. The increase of cost due to the treatment
of the fibres should be a point of concern.
The preliminary data obtained might be served in
the aerospace research area including aeroelastic and
ballistic analysis or can be used as a replacement in
automotive components and construction products.
The details of research methodology and result
analysis will be discussed in the next section.

II.

Materials and Methods

A commercially available semi-finished product of

raw brown coir fubres as shown in Fig. 1 were used in
the form of pressed mat and originally in the random
oriented fibre form. The fibres were untreated (no
surface modification).
Epoxy resin (Zeepoxy HL002 TA) and hardener
(Zeepoxy HL002 TB) that generally being used for hand
lay-up that cure at room temperature were used as matrix
of the composites. The low viscosity of the resins allows
easy handling and gives good wetting of reinforcement
and substrates. Other special features of this resin are
long pot-life, high heat distortion temperature, and good
mechanical properties.
Custom made mould made from two rectangular mild
steel sheets having dimensions of 600mm x 600mm with
rectangular frame with uniform frame width of 40mm
and thickness of 3 mm were prepared.
The functions of these plates and frame are to
compress the fibre after epoxy is applied, maintain
specimen thickness, and also as a cover to avoid the
debris from entering into composite parts during the
curing time. The mould then was cleaned and release
agent (wax) was applied on the mould before being layup with the fibre.

Fig. 1. Semi-finished product of coconut coir fibre pressed mat

Copyright 2014 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved

International Review of Mechanical Engineering, Vol. 8, N. 1

90

Mohd Amirul Abdul Rahman et al.

Epoxy resin and epoxy hardener with weight ratio 2:1

were thoroughly mixed together before uniformly poured
on the fibre. The cure was done when fibre and epoxy
mixture being compressed using compressed machine
with applied pressure 1.64 MPa for curing time of 48
hours at room temperature (303K).
Fig. 2 shows the sample of fabricated panel. Six
categories of samples were prepared for different fibre
weight ratio ranging from 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%
and 50% with epoxy resins.

The sample dimension used for the test is 100mm x

25mm x 2.5mm and flexural modulus and flexural
strength data were recorded. Shear modulus, G data
were recorded from torsion test by using Norwood 50
Nm Torsional Testing Machine under room temperature
and rate of twist of (0.16 rad/m) /min. All the tests are
repeated for each fibre weight percentage to obtain the
average values for each type of mechanical properties
data.

III. Results and Discussion

Table I below presents the calculated average tensile
modulus and flexural for 20% to 50% weight coir fibre
composite compositions. The results had shown the
composites with 25% fiber loading percentage recorded
average highest tensile modulus, E which is 17.42 MPa
while the lowest is 1.754 MPa that belongs to 40% fiber
loading percentage sample. One should say there is
decrement in value of E for increasing amount of fiber
loading and decreasing amount of epoxy resins.
Therefore, the greater fibre loading composition, the
stiffer the composite or the higher composite resistance
to elastic deformation that results from the application of
a given stress.

Fig. 2. Random oriented pressed mat coir fibre/epoxy composite

TABLE I
AVERAGE FLEXURAL MODULUS AND TENSILE MODULUS
OF ELASTICITY
Tensile
Flexural Modulus
Modulus of
Weight % of coir fiber
of Elasticity (Mpa)
Elasticity
(Mpa)
20
42.8
9.906
25
74.02
17.423
30
44.661
5.324
35
12.451
1.868
40
7.043
1.622
50
13.327
1.754

The fabricated samples were cut into the required

sizes and numbers prescribed in the standard mechanical
test and undergone tensile, flexural and torsion test with
accordance to ASTM D 3039, ASTM D 790, and ASTM
D 198 relatively to obtain mechanical properties of the
material including tensile strength, tensile modulus and
shear modulus.
The data have been recorded.
For the tensile test, the samples which dimension of
250 mm 25 mm 2.5 mm were prepared and test under
room temperature and test speed of 2 mm/min on a 10
kN Instron Universal Testing Machine to obtain average
Young Modulus for each fiber weight percentage. The
three point flexural test was done by using 5kN Instron
Universal Testing Machine test speed of 2 mm/min under
room temperature.

The similar pattern also shown in the flexural modulus

and flexural strength data as depicted in Table I and Fig.
4 where the amount of coir fibre influenced the
mechanical properties recorded.
The flexural strength and modulus tends to decrease
with the amount of fibre and the highest flexural modulus
is 74.02 MPa and the highest flexural strength is 58.59
MPa, both belong to 25% fibre loading while the lowest
belongs to 40% fibre loading. As a first comment, the
higher than 35% coir fiber loading panels shown the
higher flexibility behaviour which are soft and
deformable while the less than 35% wt coir fibre loading
panels show more rigid behaviour which are stiff and
relatively hard.
Therefore, up to 35% fibres loading the fabricated
composite panels is structural-like materials while above
this percentage, the epoxy resins does not properly
impregnate the fibres.
Lack of efficient reinforcement by coir fibres might
attribute to their low modulus of elasticity as common
behaviour for other natural fibres.

Figs. 3. Mechanical tests: (a) tensile test (b) flexural test

(c) torsion test

Copyright 2014 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved

International Review of Mechanical Engineering, Vol. 8, N. 1

91

Mohd Amirul Abdul Rahman et al.

Therefore, the average elastic modulus in flexural

should be identified to any avoid confusions for the
interpretation of the mechanical behaviour of the material
[10]-[11]. The determination of torsional properties,
shear modulus, G was done by using torsion test.
From Fig. 6 of the average shear modulus for each
fibre loading percentage, the 20% fibre loading
percentage recorded highest average shear modulus
while 50% fibre loading percentage recorded the lowest.
The imposition of torsional stresses also evokes elastic
behaviour same like tension stress since the randomly
oriented fibres composite could be considered as an
isotropic materials.
Therefore, the shear modulus data obtained could be
used for further supporting the tensile modulus and
flexural modulus data obtained which agreed that the
higher than 35% coir fiber loading panels shown the
higher flexibility behaviour which are soft and
deformable while the less than 35% wt coir fiber loading
panels show more rigid behaviour which are stiff and
relatively hard.

80
60
40
20
0
0

20

40

60

Weight of Coir Fiber (wt.%)

Fig. 4. Variation of the flexural strength with the mass fraction

of coir fibre

The results than compared to the flexural strength for

pressed mat coir fiber-polyester composite under two
different fabrication compression pressures which are 2.6
MPa and 5.2 MPa that was done by Monteiro et. al [9] as
shown in Fig. 5. This suggests the strength tends to
decrease with the amount of fiber and reveals that the
randomly oriented coir fibers are not reinforcing neither
epoxy matrix nor polyester matrix at all. Several
measurement points (25% and 35% wt fibre) had not
been included in Monteiro work. Besides that, the
different in pressures did not be a major influence to the
value of flexural strength compared to the difference type
of matrix that has been used.

0,004
0,003
0,002
0,001
0

80

60

Pressure
2.6MPa

20
0
0

20

40

60

40

60

Fiber wt. (%)

Pressure
1.3MPa

40

20

Fig. 6. Variation of the average shear modulus with

the mass fraction of coir fibre

Pressure
5.2MPa

For the further commercial and research interest, the

coir fibre composite might be further used as a
alternatives replacement material for non-critical
structure for furniture, building furnished, automotive
and aerospace parts. It might be tailored, modified, or
hybridize into other conventional composite or material
in order to increase the material performance for the
future works and use depending on the purposes.

Weight of Cor Fiber (wt.%)

Fig. 5. Variation of the flexural strength with the mass fraction
of coir fibre for different compression fabrication pressures

Table I shows the comparison between flexural

modulus of elasticity and tensile modulus of elasticity.
Generally, the elastic moduli achieved from the flexural
test are generally close to the elastic modulus obtained
from tensile test using the same material.
However, there are several factors that might affect
the elastic modulus, which are 1) elastic and plastic
deformation at the rollers at the supports or the loading
points might not be sufficiently small in comparison to
the beam deflection; 2) if a short specimen is flexural
tested, deformation due to shear stress may take place,
which are not ideal for the calculation according to the
beam theory; 3) materials might have different elastic
modulus under flexural and tension.

IV. Conclusion
It can be concluded that the amount of cir fibre
loading played an important role in determination of
stiffness level of the composite. T the less than 35% wt
coir fiber loading panels show more rigid behaviour
which are stiff and relatively hard while greater than 35%
coir fiber loading panels shown the higher flexibility
behaviour which are soft and deformable.
The coir fibre shows the common behaviour similar
likes other natural plant fibre which is lack of efficient
reinforcement that lead to their low stiffness level

Copyright 2014 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved

International Review of Mechanical Engineering, Vol. 8, N. 1

92

Mohd Amirul Abdul Rahman et al.

compared to other conventional composites. The

preliminary data established in this research might be
served as a reference for further studies.

Authors' information
Mohd Amirul Abdul Rahman born in 14
November 1986 in Muar, Johor, Malaysia.He
obtained his Bachelor Degree in Engineering
(Aerospace) in 2010 from International Islamic
University Malaysia. Currently studying Master
of Science Aerosapce Engineering by research
in Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor,
Malaysia. His major field of study is
experimental aeroelasticity and natural composite.
E-mail: amirulmier@gmail.com

Acknowledgements
The author acknowledge all the members of the
research for their support.

References
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Munaim Ali Omar Baki was born in 1985.

The author started his tertiary education at
matriculation level in 2003 at Kolej Matrikulasi
Johor, Tangkak, johor. He obtained his
Bachelor Degree of Aircraft Engineering
Technology (Mechanical)in 2011 at UniKL
Malaysia Instituite of Aviation Technology
(MIAT), Dengkil, Selangor. Currently studying
Master of Science Aerospace Engineering by research in Universiti
Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. He concentrating in
study of ballisctic impact and natural composite.
E-mail: munaim1985@yahoo.com

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Dr. Azmin Shakrine Mohd Rafie is a lecturer

in Aerospace engineering department at
Universiti Putra Malaysia. He was enrolled to
Dip. Eng. Program in 1192 at Universiti
Teknologi Malaysia for three years. Then he
continued his study n bachelor program in the
same iuniversity. He graduated in 1998 with
B.Eng in Mechanical Engineering (Aeronautic).
He joined the same university as a research assistant from 1998 to 2001
and at the same time enrolled the master program in aeronautic
engineering. In 2002 he obtained his M.Eng Degree and joint Universiti
Putra Malaysia as tutor. In November 2003, he further his studied in
PhD program in aerospace engineering at Universiti Putra Malaysia. He
then received his PhD in 2007. His research dedicated to the
Experimental Aerodynamic and Aeroelasticity. He his among the
pioneer in developing the experimental work on aeroelasticity field in
Malaysia. His current research interest is primarily in developing
experimental aeroelasticity and aerodynamic especially in composite
material.
E-mail: shakrine@upm.edu.my
Renuganth Varatharajoo received Ph. D. In
Spacecraft Sysytems from Dresden University
of Technology (germany) in 2003. He is
currently a lecturer/ reseacrcher at University
Putra Malaysia. He teaches sapce realted
courses. His research focuses on 1) spacecraft
navifgation and control; 2) combined attitude
control systems; and 3) rocket trajectory
optimisation. He has authored numerous publications on the subject
matter. He is also acting as a reviewer for a few aerospace journals.
E-mail: renu@upm.edu.my

Copyright 2014 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved

International Review of Mechanical Engineering, Vol. 8, N. 1

93