Feather Fiber Reinforced Polyester Composites

R. B. Choudary¹*, A. Srihari Prasad² and N. R. M. R. Bhargava³

¹Department of Production Engineering, K.L. College of Engineering, Vaddeswaram - 522 502 (India).

²Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sir C.R.Reddy College of Engineering, Eluru (India).

³Department of Metallurgical Engineering, College of Engineering, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, (India).

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/msri/040233

ABSTRACT:

Chicken feathers, generated in large quantities while processing chicken for meat, by and large are going waste. Added to that, the disposal of feather waste at the processing plants is posing ecological problems. The problem is more serious in India due to the prevailing marketing habits. Chicken meat is processed and sold in small and scattered shops in urban areas of India, unlike in the developed countries and the generated feather waste is dumped mostly into canals indiscriminately resulting in serious pollution. Present study is aimed at finding ways and means to use chicken feather in polymer matrix composites, replacing the existing man made fibers. Chicken feathers were collected from a local meat shop, processed to prepare chicken feather fibers (CFF) and then mixed with polyester resin for preparing the composite material. Test samples were prepared with varying fractions of feather fiber (0 - 3.0%) using hand lay-up process. An increase in elastic modulus and tensile strength of the composite over the virgin polymer was observed up to 2.0% weight fraction. Similar trend was observed in flexural tests also. SEM examination revealed proper interaction between the polymer and feather fiber. In addition, the low density of feather fiber resulted in a composite that is lighter. The lower cost combined with reasonably higher strength of CFF-Polyester composite qualify it for specific consumer applications like nonstructural auto components and coverings for domestic gadgets etc.

KEYWORDS: Chicken feather fiber; polyester matrix composites

Copy the following to cite this article: Choudary R. B, Prasad A. S, Bhargava N. R. M. R. Feather Fiber Reinforced Polyester Composites. Mat.Sci.Res.India;4(2)

Copy the following to cite this URL: Choudary R. B, Prasad A. S, Bhargava N. R. M. R. Feather Fiber Reinforced Polyester Composites. Mat.Sci.Res.India;4(2). Available from: http://www.materialsciencejournal.org/?p=1796

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