Atul Kumar Tiwari, Assistant Professor, Pankaj Kumar Yadav, Assistant Professor, Gaurav Kumar Ojha, Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering department, School of Management Sciences Lucknow Uttar Pradesh, India.
A Study on Thermal and Acoustic Characteristics of Bagasse Fibre Reinforced Epoxy Composites
Authors
Abstract
This research work mainly deals with processing and characterization of bagasse fiber
reinforced epoxy composite. Effective Thermal conductivity and sound absorption coefficient of bagasse
fiber reinforced epoxy composites are analysed experimentally by consuming the bagasse fiber from
sugarcane waste stock in fabricating the sound absorber material by simple hand layup technique. In the
first part their acoustic properties such as sound absorption coefficient (α) are examined and compared
with experimental values. In second part the results are compared with the effective thermal conductivity
(Keff) values obtained from experiment by using the established models such as Rule-of-Mixture (ROM),
Maxwell’s model, bruggeman equation, Lewis and Nielsen. The thermal conductivity values are measured
with the UnithermTM model 2022 tester according to the ASTM standard E-1530 whereas, absorption
coefficient values are measured in impedance tube machine. According to the research analysis the
reinforcement of the bagasse fiber results in reduction of thermal conductivity of epoxy as well as
increased in the sound absorption coefficient on increment of filler volume fraction. With up gradation in
heat insulation and sound absorption capacity, these reinforced epoxy composites can discover their
application in wall insulation, food container, thermos- flask and other similar thermal and acoustic
insulation applications.