Effect of Fiber Loading and Void Content on Tensile Properties of Keratin Based Randomly Oriented Human Hair Fiber Composites

Human hair is a non-biodegradable waste available in abundant quantity across the world, but is not explored fully for applications in engineering field. Tensile strength of human hair ranges from 150 to 220 MPa. This property of human hair can be made use in the field of making bio-composites. In the present work, hair based bio-composites are prepared by combining the human hair and polyester using hand layup technique. Volume fraction of the human hair fiber is varied by fixing the fibre length at 20 mm and tensile tests were conducted as per the standards. While increasing the fibre volume fraction up to a certain range the composite materials have shown superior amendments in their tensile properties. Further, the experimental results are compared with theoretical models.