Physical and mechanical properties of epoxy reinforced with pistachio shell particulates

Recently, natural fillers have gain huge interest among the academic researchers and scientists to be used as potential reinforcement material in polymeric matrix composites. The various reasons which attract the scientific community toward it usage in polymer composites are its low cost, ample availability, easy processing and the most important is the growing concern towards environmental awareness as they are bio-degradable. Reinforcing natural fillers is also an efficient approach towards waste management as most of the promising natural fillers were dumped if not used. Following the similar trend, an attempt has been made to utilize pistachio shells as a filler material in polymeric resin for developing a composite body. Pistachio shell with particle size 75 micron is used with epoxy matrix in present investigation. Six sets of epoxy based composites are fabricated using hand lay-up method by varying the filler content upto 30 wt. %. Density of the composites is evaluated using Archimedes principle. Micrographs are taken to visualize the compatibility between filler and matrix body. Tensile strength, compressive strength, flexural strength and hardness are the various mechanical properties evaluated of the developed materials. From the experimental analysis, it has been found that, all the mechanical properties of the composite under consideration increases with filler content. Though increase in density is also observed with filler loading but the increment is marginal. On the basis of experimental findings, it can be concluded that the developed material can be gainfully found its application in light duty structures.