Flexural properties of rice straw reinforced polyester composites

Abstract

335-338Rice straw fibres have been extracted and incorporated in polyester resin matrix to prepare rice straw rein forced polyester composites and the flexural properties of resultant composites studied. The composites with a mean flexural strength of 66.3 Mpa, which is greater than that of plain polyester (55.08 MPa), can be formulated with an optimum fibre volume of about 40%. The flexural modulus or composite is found to be 2630 MPa which is about 1.5 times greater than that of plain polyester. The specific flexural modulus is nearly 2 times greater than that of polyester resin. Straw-based composites are suitable as core material for structural board products