Modeling and analysis of the creep behavior of jute/green epoxy composites incorporated with chemically treated pulverized nano/micro jute fibers

• Preparation of nano/micro fibers from alkali treated jute waste by pulverization.
• Improvement in creep behavior of composites by the addition of jute nano/micro fillers.
• Improvement in dynamic mechanical properties of composites.
• The creep behavior is simulated using creep models.

This paper reports the creep behavior of alkali treated jute/green epoxy composites incorporated with various loadings (1, 5 and 10 wt%) of chemically treated pulverized jute fibers (PJF) at different environment temperatures. Composites were prepared by hand layup method and compression molding technique. The creep and dynamic mechanical tests were performed in three-point bending mode by dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA). The incorporation of PJF is found to significantly improve the creep resistance and strain rate of composites. Three creep models i.e. Burger’s model, Findley’s power law model and a simpler two-parameter power law model were used to model the creep behavior in this study. The time temperature superposition principle (TTSP) was applied to predict the long-term creep performance. The Findley’s power law model was found to be satisfactory in predicting the long-term creep behavior. Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) results revealed the increase in storage modulus, glass transition temperature and reduction in the tangent delta peak height of composites with higher loading of PJF.