Multi-objectives Statistical Optimization and micro-mechanics Mathematical Modelling of Musa Acuminate fibre-vinyl Ester Composite Reinforcement

Natural fibers are fast emerging as most widely applied reinforcing material in composites and statistical optimization and modeling provides deep insight and clear understanding of the key influencing factors, required optimum conditions and their interactions. The application of response surface methodology (RSM) to develop the optimum mechanical properties of musa acuminate (banana) fibre reinforced-vinyl-ester composite using box-behnken design (BBD) of experiment interfaced with desirability function (DF) analysis on second order polynomial model respectively are presented. The banana fiber (BF) was extracted using wet retting method (WRM) while the reinforced composite was produced using hand lay-up method. The standard mechanical properties were determined using ASTM standard methods for plastics. Curing time, fiber length and fiber content were studied as input process parameters while six mechanical properties: Creep (C), tensile strength (TS), flexural strength (FS), toughness (T), Young modulus (YM) and ultimate elongation (UE) which determine the efficiency of composites were studied as response variables. The optimum responses based on the RSM optimization are 85.64 MPa, 73.406 GPa, 24.466 MPa, 85.56%, 83.37 MPa and 90.62 s(-1) for tensile strength, young modulus, toughness, ultimate elongation, flexural strength and creep respectively. Micro-mechanic models show that banana fiber increased the TS, YM, T, UE, FS and C by 79 %, 276 %, 311 % and 60 % respectively when compared with blank vinyl ester (BVE). The fiber length was found to be the most significant factors, except for ultimate elongation that has curing time as the most significant factor. RSM proved to be efficient methods for empirical modeling and optimization and has excellent means of identifying patterns in data and effectively predicting mechanical properties of musa acuminate Fiberre inforced-vinyl -ester composite based on investigating inputs.