Jute sack cloth reinforced polypropylene composites: Mechanical and sorption studies

Composite materials were fabricated using jute and polypropylene sacks by c ompression molding. Different types of composites were fabricated by varyin g the number of jute layers, number of polypropylene layers and the mode of combination of jute and polypropylene layers keeping the total number of l ayers a constant. It was found that as the number of polypropylene layers i ncreases, the tensile strength, tear strength and modulus increased, but th e elongation at break and equilibrium water uptake were found to be decreas ed. Also, when the number of jute layers increases, by keeping the number o f polypropylene layers constant, generally failure properties decreased but an increased water uptake was observed. The influence of various construct ions on the properties was analysed by changing the mode of combination of jute and polypropylene layers. In these experiments, the total number of la yers were fixed a constant. It was found that the preferred combination is one with jute as core layer and polypropylene as skin layers. Scanning elec tron microscopy was used to analyse the failure surface morphology of the c omposites. Finally value added product was fabricated using selected compos ites.