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ENGINEERING JOURNAL CHIANG MAI UNIVERSITY


Volume 26, No. 01, Month APRIL, Year 2019, Pages 33 - 47


Influence of natural wood types and pigment contents on properties of wood-plastic composites

Chatree Homkhiew, Surasit Rawangwong, Worapong Boonchouytan and Thanate Ratanawilai


Abstract Download PDF

In production of wood-plastic composites (WPCs), types of natural wood is a factor affecting the properties of WPCs. Because each type of wood has the different structure and strength, therefore, the objectives of this research were to study the effect of natural wood types, such as rubberwood flour (RW), oil palm wood flour (OW) and oil palm frond flour (OF), as well as effect of pigment contents on mechanical and physical properties of composites from high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and wood flour. From testing the composites without pigment, the HDPE composites reinforced with RW had higher modulus of rupture (MOR), modulus of elasticity (MOE), tensile strength (TS), tensile modulus (TM) and hardness than the composites reinforced with OW and reinforced with OF. Likewise, the HDPE composites reinforced with OF showed greater all mechanical properties than the composites reinforced with OW. Furthermore, addition of pigment 1 wt% clearly improved the MOR, MOE and hardness of all the composites. However, addition of pigment 5 wt% reduced the TS and hardness of the WPCs. Lastly, the composites reinforced with RW exhibited brown texture, while the composites reinforced with OW appeared dark brown texture, and texture of the composites with OF is black.


Keywords

Wood-Plastic Composites, Rubberwood, Oil Palm Trunk, Oil Palm Frond, High-Density Polyethylene



ENGINEERING JOURNAL CHIANG MAI UNIVERSITY


Published by : Faculty of Engineering Chiang Mai University
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