Mechanical and thermal properties of NaOH treated sisal natural fiber reinforced polymer composites: Barium sulphate used as filler

Abstract Nowadays, the synthetics fibers are getting replaced by natural fibers in many applications. This is because there are some advantages of natural fibers over synthetic fibers. The main advantages are their easy availability, renewable, low in cost, biodegradable, nontoxic and eco-friendly in nature. In various studies it has been found that the automobile brake material (asbestos) is harmful for human health. In the present research the asbestos is replaced by the sisal natural fiber. For this purpose, different percentage of sisal fibers are used to develop new samples (5–20% of sisal fibers). 10% wt of sisal fibers matrix shows the good results for the modulus of elasticity, impact energy, flexural strength, compressive strength and 15% wt of sisal fibers matrix shows good results for shear strength, proof stress and tensile strength. It has been found that thermal stability of sisal fibers showing maximum value at 20%.