Mechanical Properties of Sugar Palm Fibre Reinforced High Impact Polystyrene Composites

This paper presented a study on tensile properties of sugar palm fibre (SPF) reinforced high impact polystyrene (HIPS) composites. Short SPFs were obtained by finely cutting long fibres with pulverisette tool and they were filtered using a sieve to a size of 30-50 mesh. Five different fibre loadings of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50% by weight were mixed with HIPS polymer to form composites fabricated using melt mixer and hot press. Tensile tests of the composites were carried out using Instron machine. The results showed that the increase of short SPF loading in HIPS matrix improved tensile strength and modulus of the composites.