Abstract

Properties of natural fiber vary with its growth conditions even with different parts of the fiber. The main objective of this work is to study the effect of the fragment height in the fiber stem (FHFS) on the mechanical properties of abaca fibers and their unidirectional composites. Abaca fibers were cut into sequent fragments, and their unidirectional epoxy composites were fabricated by means of a compression molding technique. Tensile tests of fibers as well as composites were conducted, followed by the physicochemical analysis such as morphology, density, chemical compounds, and crystal structure. The results showed that the tensile strength and Young’s modulus of abaca fiber greatly increased to the maximum at about 1.0 m from the bottom and then slightly decreased with the increasing FHFS. This can be attributed to the different physicochemical properties caused by FHFS. Different to fiber, the tensile strength of composites presented a remarkable decrease with increasing FHFS due to the different stochastic nature of fiber which is varied with FHFS.