Experimentally Predicted Optimum Processing Parameters Assisted by Numerical Analysis on the Multi-Physicomechanical Characteristics of Coir Fiber Reinforced Recycled High-Density Polyethylene Composites

Abstract

Ene Awodi, Umaru Semo Ishiaku, Mohammed Kabir Yakubu, Johnson Kehinde Abifarin

This paper presents the analysis of processing parameters in the fabrication of coir fiber recycled high density polyethylene composite through experimental data and Taguchi grey relational analysis. Three processing parameters; fiber conditions, fiber length, and fiber loading with mixed level design, having orthogonal array L32 (2**1 4**2) were employed in the preparation of polymer composite. Numerical analysis assisted by Taguchi design was conducted on the experimental multi-physicomechanical characteristics of the polymer composite for optimum processing parameters. The optimum grey relational grade was gotten to be 0.8286 and was experimentally validated with 95% confidence interval. The optimum processing parameters were discovered to be a treated fiber having 8 mm length at 30% loading. Although, other processing parameters are significant, but fiber loading is the most significant parameter. Correspondingly, the contribution of residual error on the overall multi-physicomechanical characteristics is insignificant having 2.43% of contribution.

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