Microstructural Characterisation of Jute/Epoxy Quasi-Unidirectional Composites

Abstract

The elastic properties of a composite can be predicted by micromechanical models based on the properties of the individual constituent materials of the composite and their geometrical characteristics. This paper presents a novel methodology using image analysis to determine (a) the fibre volume fraction and (b) the fibre orientation distribution factor of quasi-unidirectional jute fibre reinforced epoxy resin composites. For fibre volume fraction, digital micrographs were smoothed to reduce noise in the image, an intensity histogram informed selection of the threshold intensity for conversion to a binary image, the image was morphologically closed and opened to remove internal voids and small features respectively and the fibre volume fraction was calculated as the ratio of the detected fibre area to the total image area. For fibre orientation, the image was sharpened with Contrast-Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalisation, a threshold was set for conversion to binary and then a masking image was rotated at a number of seed points over the image to find the angles with the minimum sum of intensity at each point. The data generated was then used to validate new rules-of-mixture equations for natural fibre composites.