The Effect of Compression Temperature and Time on 2D Woven Kenaf Fiber Reinforced Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS)

A natural fibre-based composite from woven kenaf was fabricated using hydraulic hot press machine. Plain woven kenaf fabrics were prepared and used as reinforced material with ABS sheet followed by hot press. Woven fabric was treated using sodium hydroxide and being compare with untreated fabric. The effect of the processing temperature and time towards tensile properties of the composite were investigated. Tensile test was carried out to measure the strength of the composite towards the effect of processing temperature and time. The surface morphology of the composite was studied with Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Optical Microscopic. The result shows that woven Kenaf degrade in strength when expose with high temperature and long exposure to the heat. The permeability of woven Kenaf plain fabric does not indicate a good penetration as observed by microscopy.