Composites play significant role as engineering material and their use has been increasing day by day due to their specific properties such as high strength to weight ratios, high modulus to weight ratio, corrosion resistance, and wear resistance. In present work, an attempt is made to hybridize the material using synthetic (glass) as well as natural fibers (chemically treated sisal), such that to reduce the overall use of synthetic reinforcement, to reduce the overall cost, and to enhance the mechanical properties. All composite specimens with different weight percentages of fibers were manufactured using hand lay-up process and testing was done by using ASTM standards. Experimental results revealed that hybridization of composite with natural and synthetic fibers shows enhanced tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength. The content of natural reinforcement was found to be in the range of 25–33.3% for best results. The effect of treated sisal on flexural properties was more than that on tensile properties, which was due to greater stiffness of sisal fibers. Chemical treatment of sisal fibers lowers the water absorption and results were comparable to glass fiber reinforced polyester composites. The addition of sisal also reduced the overall cost by 22.18%.
Glass fiber, sisal, polyester, hybrid campsite
