Regression Analysis and Morphological Study of Chemically Treated Organic Fibers

The environmental instability influences the organic fiber's potential as reinforcement to replace the synthetic fibers because of its high specific stiffness and strength. In the last several decades green polymer-based composites are gaining revival popularity in various industrial sectors providing inconsistent properties. The organic fibers are subjected to mercerization for improvement of surface texture. This paper evaluates the tensile properties of both untreated and mercerized natural brown coir (BC) and brown flax (BF) fibers through multiple linear regression analysis. The tensile test of fibers is conducted for varying strain rates and diameters. The regression model yields an excellent correlation coefficient for the evaluation of tensile strength at distinct strain rates. The treated BF fiber ensures superior tensile strength with the highest R2 value and treated BC results better tensile load-carrying capacity than others. The treatment effects on moisture absorption behavior, fractographic, and morphology of the selected cellulosic fibers are also summarized. It is observed that treated BC and BF fibers absorb more moisture than untreated fibers but BC fiber shows extreme water gain than BF fiber. Similarly, BF exhibits maximum clean fracture whereas dull and depressed fractures are observed in case of BC fiber which indicates the brittle and ductile fractures of the surface respectively.