Enhancing Natural Fiber Composites: Vacuum Infusion Parameters and Tensile Strength Correlation

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-920-9_25How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Natural Fiber Composites; Coconut Coir; Biodegradable Reinforcement

Abstract

Composite materials are engineered combinations of two or more constituents, designed to exhibit superior properties compared to their individual components. Coconut coir, a biodegradable and renewable resource, has emerged as a promising reinforcement material in composites, contributing to waste reduction and sustainability. Among the various composite fabrication methods, vacuum infusion offers the advantage of even resin distribution, making it efficient in resin usage and time management. This study investigates the influence of key process parameters during vacuum-assisted resin infusion on the tensile performance of polyester–coconut coir composites. The Taguchi method is used to determine the contribution of each parameter, using Taguchi L9 (3^4) design, followed by S/N ratio and ANOVA analysis. Based on the experimental results and analysis, it was found that significant parameters including fiber orientation and catalyst variation, while vacuum pressure and fiber volume fraction have no significant effect on tensile strength. The contributions of each parameter are 83.24% (fiber orientation), 7.33% (catalyst variation), 1.41% (fiber volume fraction), and 0.74% (vacuum pressure). The optimal combination of parameters, determined based on S/N ratio calculation, includes a vacuum pressure of 0.2 bar, fiber volume fraction of 10%, fiber orientation of 0°, and catalyst concentration of 0.5%. Despite increasing interest in natural fiber composites, limited studies have systematically quantified the impact of process parameters on mechanical performance. This study provides insights into the parameters affecting the tensile strength of composites using the vacuum-assisted resin infusion method via the Taguchi method.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Mahros Darsin
AU  - Dhanu Febriyan Wahyu Saputra
AU  - Mochamad Asrofi
AU  - Ahmad Syuhri
AU  - Aris Zainul Muttaqin
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/15
TI  - Enhancing Natural Fiber Composites: Vacuum Infusion Parameters and Tensile Strength Correlation
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Recent Innovations in Sustainable Engineering Solutions 2025 (ICONRISES 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 257
EP  - 269
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-920-9_25
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-920-9_25
ID  - Darsin2025
ER  -