PENGARUH TEMPERATUR CURING TERHADAP KEKUATAN TARIK KOMPOSIT UNSATURATED POLYESTER RESIN YANG DIPERKUAT SERAT PISANG

Abstract

Curing is an important process to change mechanical characteristic of composite. This paper addresses the problem of determining the effect of curing to banana fiber reinforced unsaturated polyester resin composite tensile strength at various temperatures (70o C, 75o C, 80o C, dan 85o C) with 90 minutes holding time curing temperature. This paper also determine the effect of weight fraction variation to tensile strength, using continuous fiber orientation type and various amount of fibers (9, 27, and 81 sheets). After the test, the composite show the increase of tensile strength with maximum tensile strength occure at 800 C curing composite at every weight fraction. It happen because the curing process have reached the glass transition temperature (Tg). The result also show the increase of tensile strength along with weight fraction, with maximum tensile strength occur at composite with 81 sheet amount of fibers (weight fraction = 0.684 %) at every curing temperature variation. Key Words : Curing, composite, weight fraction, continuous fiber, glass transition temperature.