Summary: | This work was carried out to investigate the influence of chemically treatment palm kernel shell fiber (PKSF) and particulate cassava peel (PCP) as hybrid reinforcements on some selected mechanical properties and wear behavior of PKSF/PCP hybrid reinforced epoxy composites. Open mould technique was used for the composites developed by incorporating fixed amount of PKSF in both treated and untreated conditions into varied proportions of epoxy and PCP, respectively. The cured samples after 28 days were subjected to tensile, flexural and wear tests. Porosity of the composites were estimated by considering the experimental and the theoretical densities of the composite samples. The fractured surface morphology was investigated with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) while X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) was used to determine the elemental constituent of the cassava peel. From the results, it was discovered that, chemically treated PKSF/PCP hybrid reinforced samples performed better than the untreated PKSF/PCP hybrid reinforced counterparts in most of the properties considered. The addition of chemically treated PKSF/PCP hybrid reinforcement into the epoxy matrix brought about some enhancement in the stiffness of the developed composites which made them have better resistance to deformation under different loading conditions for the estimation of young’s modulus of elasticity, flexural strength at peak and wear. Optimum values were obtained from the addition of 6 wt.% PCP reinforcement composition.
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