Effect of the Temperature on the Mechanical Properties of Jute Fabric Reinforced Epoxy Composite

This work presents an experimental evaluation into the effect of the temperature upon the thermal properties and the mechanical properties of jute fabric/epoxy composite heated at different temperatures. The jute fabric/epoxy was prepared at the ambient temperature and fixed volume fraction of jute (four fabric layers) using infusion method. To examine the effect of the temperature, the composite was heated at different temperatures. The mechanical properties of the jute fabric/epoxy heated at different temperatures were carefully investigated. The results shows that the composites exposed to the high temperature are prone to the lower mechanical properties. At the temperature (80 ℃), the composite shows a high ability to deformation due to the matrix softening which reduces the cohesion between the epoxy and the jute fabric, which is the reason for the decrease of the tensile stress. Moreover, the matrix softening increase with an increase of heating temperature. The lowest tensile stress (reduce by more than 58%) was determined in the case of the composite heated at the temperature 80 ℃. The results in this research confirm the limitation of the composite use in different applications, especially at high temperature.