The preparation and characteristics of chicken feather/ epoxy composites / Ahmad Zafir Romli

The uses of the natural fiber in the fabrication of the composites are being studied all over the world. Most of the fiber used comes from trees. In this research, the fiber or filler used is obtained from chicken feather. The chicken feather was washed and pulverized to obtain a shorter and uniform fiber. Few tests were carried out as to ensure the processed chicken feather will not degrade due to the washing and drying. The tests are the Thermal Gravimetric Analysis and optimizing drying time. The pulverized chicken feather was mixed with the epoxy resins and undergo a fabrication process called 'pressure assisted' hand-layup techniques and this requires a steel mold. The amount of pulverized chicken feather were varies at 10%, 20%, 30% 40% and 50% by weight. The sample (chicken feather composites) comes out from the mold has a dimension of (25 X 25 X 3)mm and was cut using a precision cutter to form the required sample for the physical and mechanical test. The physical test involves are the water absorption test and the density test. Tensile, 3-point bending and impact test were used to evaluate the mechanical properties of the chicken feather composites. For the comparison purposes, sample from the vein and the main shaft of the chicken feather was also fabricated (10% and 50% by weight). The water absorption test shows that with the increase percentage of the chicken feather cause an increase in the water absorption properties. The density test reveals something interesting whereby the chicken feather fabricated confer to two theoretical densities that is the bulk (0.8g/cm3 ) and the keratin (1.21g/cm ). This behavior gives a significant effect towards the mechanical properties. The tensile and 3-point bending test shows a decreasing pattern of the strength value as the percentage of the chicken feather increases but the strength are comparably the same after 30% of chicken feather loading. The impact test on the other hand shows an increasing pattern with the increase of chicken feather loading. From all the test that was carried out, a simple correlation studies was carried out and it shows that it is insignificant to separate the main shaft and the vein of the chicken feather in order to obtain an overall good mechanical properties for the chicken feather composites. From the research that was carried out, it shows that the higher the chicken feather loading (30% and above), it will give good overall performance for the mechanical properties and also increased the water absorption behavior.