# I. Introduction

omposites can be defined as materials that consist of two or more chemically and physically different phases separated by a distinct interface. The different systems are combined judiciously to achieve a system with more useful structural or functional properties no attainable by any of the constituent alone [Shaw et al. 2010]. The strength of bamboo is greater than many timber products, but lesser than the tensile strength of steel. Bamboo is readily available and is emerging as low cost, light weight, and environmentally friendly. Tensile test is the most basic type of mechanical test. It is not difficult to perform and it is not expensive compared to other mechanical tests.


# II. Materials and Methods


# General

purpose grade unsaturated orthophathalic polyester resin (RGP 67G), was obtained from Center for Composite Research and Development, JuNeng Nigeria Limited, Nsukka. The bamboo fibres were extracted mechanically from the young stem of bamboo plant, shredded and air-dried for young stem of bamboo plant, shredded and air-dried for about a week until constant mass. The dried fibres were chopped into 10mm, 30mm and 50mm fibre lengths and 10%, 30% and 50% weight fraction used as reinforcement materials in the composite preparation, by hand lay-up method using a three-piece stainless s t e e l mould having dimensions 200x 150x30mm. Methyl ethyl ketone p er o x i d e (MEKP) and cobalt napthenate of commercial grade were used as the catalyst and accelerator respectively for resin curing.


# a) Volume Fraction and Density of Fibre

The density and volume fraction of fibres used for the sample preparation was calculated by a method which enables the rule of mixtures analysis of measured composite properties. The picnometric procedure was adopted for measuring the density pc of the composite of mass M c at a given mass fraction of resin M r . Volume fraction V r of resin was calculated using the following relationships:
?? ?? = ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? [1]
Where ?? ?? is the resin density then, the volume fraction ?? ð??"ð??" and density ?? ð??"ð??" of fibre where calculated using the following equations: [1]
?? ð??"ð??" + ?? ?? = 1 [2] ?? ?? = ?? ð??"ð??" ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ð??"ð??" [3]
The density of fibre was also measured using archimedes principle. Both results produced similar results and an average value of 960kg/m 3 was obtained as fibre density. b) The Taguchi Approach to Robust Parameter Design In the early 1980s, Genichi Taguchi, a Japanese engineer, introduced his approach to using experimental design for: designing products or processes so that they are robust to environmental conditions; designing/ developing products so that they are robust to component variation; and minimizing variation around a target value.

In parameter design, there are two types of factors that affect a product's functional characteristic: control factors and noise factors, at this stage of design, the specific values for the system parameters are determined. Usually, the objective is to specify these nominal parameter values such that the variability transmitted from uncontrollable or noise variables is minimized.


# III. Selection of an Orthogonal Array

In selecting an appropriate OA, the prerequisites are: (a) selection of process parameters and interactions to be evaluated and (b) selection of number of levels for the selected parameters [2] The process parameters were already decided and are given in Table 1. It was also decided to study each selected parameter at three levels. With two parameters each at three levels, the total degree of freedom (DOF) required is 4 [= 2(3-1)]. As per Taguchi's DOE approach, the total DOF of t selected OA must be greater than or equal to the total DOF required for the experiment. So, an L 9 (2 3 ) orthogonal array was selected for the present work.


# IV. Experimental-Analysis and Discussion

The tensile tests were performed according to ASTM D638 standard using Universal Testing Machine at a crosshead speed of 5 mm/min. Specimens for each sample were tested and the tensile strength and tensile modulus were expressed as:

Tensile strength (MPa) = P/bh [4] Where; P = Pulling force (N), b =Specimen width (m), and h = Specimen thickness (m) Robust design is an "engineering methodology for improving productivity during research and development so that high-quality products can be produced quickly and at low cost" [3]. The idea behind robust design is to improve the quality of a product by minimizing the effects of variation without eliminating the causes (since they are too difficult or too expensive to control). Nine trial conditions with three repetitions are used in this work. The selected quality characteristic, tensile strength, is 'higher the better' (HB) type, the S/N (signal to noise) ratio, for 'higher the better' type of response was used as given in the following equation:
(S/N) HB = ?10?????? ? 1 ?? ? 1 ?? 1 2 + 1 ?? 2 2 + ? 1 ?? ?? 2 ?? [5]
Where y 1 , y 2 ??y n are the responses of quality characteristic for a trial condition repeated n times. The S/N ratios were computed using equation 5 for each of the 9 trials and mean response for each factor at the three levels is presented in Table 3. [4] Along with the raw data. The average value of the tensile strength for each parameter at levels 1, 2 and 3 are plotted in figure 2. The average values of S/N ratios of various parameters at levels 1, 2 and 3 are plotted in figure 1.

The summary of the responses and ranking for tensile strength of bamboo fibre reinforced Polyester composites on the bases of the larger the better quality, for Signal to Noise Ratio, and mean of means lead to the conclusion that factor combination of A 1 B 1 gives the minimum strength while A 2 B 2 gives the maximum strength as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2. It is found that as far as the tensile strength is concerned; B and A have significant effect on the composite. The range (Delta) is the difference between higher and lower response. The larger the (Delta) value for a parameter, the larger the effect the variable has on the tensile strength of the composites. This is because the same change in signal causes a larger effect on the output variable being measured. It is clear from table 4 and 5 that the fibre weight fraction is ranked 1 st and fibre length 2 nd .In order to confirm Taguchi's design of experiment and to study the significance of the parameters in affecting the quality characteristic of the mechanical properties analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed. The pooled ANOVA of the raw data (tensile strength) is given in Table 6. The S/N ANOVA (pooled version) is given in Table 7. It is clear from ANOVAs that the parameters A and B (fibre length and fibre weight) significantly affect both the mean value as well as the variation of the tensile strength because these are significant in both the ANOVAs. The percent contributions of parameters as quantified under column P of Table 6 and Table 7 reveal that the fibre weight (B) in controlling the mean and variation is significantly larger than the fibre length (A). [5] Software MINITAB 16 was used to analyze the Taguchi design of experiment, and the linear regression equations.    The optimal tensile strength (?TS) is predicted at the selected optimal setting of process parameters. The significant parameters with optimal levels are already selected as: A2B2. The interaction effects are not being considered in estimating mean and confidence interval around the estimated mean due to poor additivity between parameters and interactions. The estimated mean of the response characteristic can be computed as [4]:
?TS = A ? 2 + B ? 2 ? T ? Ts [6]
Where:

T ? Ts = overall mean of Tensile strength = 37.83 Mpa From (Table 3)  The predicted optimal Tensile strength is: ?TS = 44.51Mpa
A ? 2 =
The 95% confidence interval of the predicted optimal tensile strength is:

( ?????? ? ??. ??) < ??????(??????) < (?????? + ??. ??).

40.401 < ?TS (Mpa) < 48.619


# b) Experimental Validation

The last stage of Taguchi's robust technique is the confirmation of the experiment. Three confirmation experiments were conducted at the optimal setting of the process parameters. The average value of tensile strength was found to be 44.54Mpa. This result was within the confidence interval (95 %) of the predicted optimal tensile strength. 


# V. Conclusions

The experimental investigations on the analysis of tensile strength of bamboo reinforced polyester composites were conducted. The experiments lead us to the following conclusions obtained from this study:

The successful fabrication of a new class of polyester based composites reinforced with short bamboo fiber is possible by simple hand lay-up technique; and The bamboo reinforced composite has an optimum tensile strength of 44.51MPa when the control factors (Fibre length, Fibre loading) are set at (30mm and 30%wt) or (level 2, level 2); Global Journal of Researches in Engineering ( ) Volume XVI Issue III Version I
![C.I=??? ? (1, ð??"ð??" ?? )?? ?? ? ? (1, ð??"ð??" ?? ) = ?? ?????????? ???????????????? ð??"ð??"???? ??; ?=risk; f e = error DOF; V e = error variance n eff = effective number of replications. ?? ??ð??"ð??"ð??"ð??" = ?? 1+[?????????? ?????? ???????????????????? ???? ????? ???????????????? ??ð??"ð??" ???????? ]](image-2.png "")
1CJournal of Researches in Engineering ( ) Volume XVI Issue III Version IGlobal
2S/NProcessing FactorsFactor's designationLevel1231Fibre Length (mm)A1030502Fibre Weight Fraction (%)B103050Source: Field experiment
3Expert. RunFibre Length (mm)Fibre Weight. Fraction (%)Measure Response (Mpa) Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3Mean Tensile ResponseSN Ratio (dB)110102827.8329.1328.3229.036552492103041.4039.5039.7040.2030.078772243105037.8037.5135.6937.0031.347692094301038.8038.4038.3038.5031.708806215303045.2044.9244.8845.0033.064120246305041.6040.3241.0841.0032.253527317501035.8035.0034.2035.0030.876821378503038.3337.0036.6337.3231.433920639505039.2038.2036.9038.1031.61049495Total346.13338.68336.51?? ? TS = Overall mean of TS =346.13+338.68+336.51 3×9= 37.83??????TS= Tensile strength.
4Year 201623Journal of Researches in Engineering ( ) Volume XVI Issue III Version I ASource: Field experimentGlobal© 2016 Global Journals Inc. (US)
5Main Effect Plot (data means) for SN Ratio32.632.432.232SN Ratio31.2 31.4 31.6 31.83130.830.630.400.511.522.533.5Factor levelsResponsesMeansLevelsA:FibreLength (mm)B: Weight Fraction (%)135.1733.94241.5040.84336.8138.70Delta6.336.90Rank21Source: Field experimentFig. 2 : Graph of Mean of Means against Factor Levels (1, 2 and 3) for Tensile StrengthThe regression equation isTensile strength = 33.0 + 0.0408 A + 0.119 BPredictorCoefSE CoefTPConstant33.0324.3037.680.000A0.040830.094650.430.681B0.119000.094651.260.255S = 4.63692 R-Sq = 22.7% R-Sq(adj) = 0.0%
6sourceDOFSSVF ratioP(%)A264.7232.361.9038.75B274.8637.432.4444.83Total8167--100e(pooled)427.426.85516.42
7sourceDOFSSVF ratioP(%)A23.6201.8101.7336.61B24.3662.1832.3744.15Total89.889--100.0e(pooled)41.9030.47619.24Source: ANOVA generated output
			© 2016 Global Journals Inc. (US)
		
		
			

The predicted optimal range at 95% confidence interval of the Tensile strength is: 40.401 < ?TS (Mpa) < 48.619

References Références Referencias  computer scientists 2008vol 11 IMECS 2008, 19-21 March, 2008, Hong Kong