A Study of the Flexural Properties of Jute Fabric Reinforced Epoxy Composite: Experimental and Uncertainty Analysis

The variability in natural fiber composite properties has always been problematic due to the dispersion in their mechanical properties resulting from fiber misalignment, irregular crosssection, fiber length, and geometry, which impacts their reliability. This issue of reliability has greatly affected the selection process of natural fiber composites as opposed to the synthetic fiber counterparts when it comes to strength, stiffness, failure strains, and energy absorption criteria. Stiffness is one property which greatly depends on the span length and load-bearing capacity of the material, which makes it an important criterion during product design. In this study, flexural properties of the jute fabric composite were studied through experiment and uncertainty analysis using various distribution functions. Jute epoxy composite at 38% fiber volume fraction was fabricated, and samples were machined using abrasive water jet machining as per ASTM D7264 standard for bend test. The samples were experimentally tested for bending strength, modulus, and failure strains, and uncertainty analysis was done to further analyze their failure behavior. Experimentally tested samples showed multimode bending failure such as M(CAT) and M(TAB) as per ASTM D7264.