Volume 10 Issue 4 ( December )

Researchers and experts in this study strongly emphasize the use of various agricultural and industrial waste materials such as coconut shells, walnut shells, almond shells, crushed nutshells, and fly ash, among others. These discarded materials are used to create new composites, which are essential to long-term sustainability. Epoxy resin was used as the polymer matrix composite material in the development of a new set of polymer composites, which are described in this paper. These polymer composites consist of different weight percentages (2.5, 5.0, 7.5, 10.0, 12.5, and 15.0) wt. percent of coconut shell particulate and walnut shell particulate in equal ratio. At room temperature, epoxy resin and epoxy hardener were mixed in a ratio of 10:1. There are fabricated six specimens of composites by hand lay-up technique. The newly developed composites are characterized by the physical and mechanical behavior of a new class of Agricultural Waste Reinforced Epoxy-Based Composite. Mechanical properties are investigated using L18 (61 31) orthogonal design with MINITAB-19 statistical software. According to the Taguchi technique and analysis of variance outcome, it was found experimentally that the sequence of parameters affects the flexural property in ascending order as filler load and speed. The results concluded that developed composites could be used as eco-friendly and cost-effective materials in lightweight applications.

Keywords: Walnut shell; Coconut shell; Physical properties; Mechanical properties; Taguchi