Revista de Ciência e Engenharia Têxtil

Effect of Gamma Radiation on the Properties of Jute Reinforced Polyester Matrix Composites

Abstract

Azim AYMA

The interest in fiber-reinforced polymer composites is growing rapidly due to its high performance in terms of mechanical properties, significant processing advantages, excellent chemical resistance, low cost, and low density. In the present work, hessian jute cloth, were used to prepare jute-polyester composites by hand lay-up and heat press molding techniques. The Jute fabrics were also treated with irradiated under gamma radiation (The source strength 50 kCi Cobalt-60) of various doses (2 kGy to 9 kGy). It was found that by using gamma radiation, the mechanical properties of these composites were improved and at 5 kGy doses all the composite structures shows the best mechanical properties. The increase in tensile properties of jute with increasing gamma radiation dose may be due to the intercross-linking between the neighboring cellulose molecules, which resulted in the strength of natural fibre. It was observed that tensile properties increase with gamma pretreatment up to a certain limit and then decrease due to the two opposing phenomena, namely, photocross-linking and photodegradation that took place simultaneously under gamma radiation.