Mehdi Karevan - Mechanical Engineering Department, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran.
Peyman Torkian - Mechanical Engineering Department, Noshirvani University of Technology, Babol, Iran.
Ali Akbari Dastgerdi - Mechanical Engineering Department, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran.

Biodegradable composites have attracted an increasing attention due their light weight, reasonable stiffness, abundance of their natural reinforcement, and their biodegradability. Numerous studies have reported mechanical performance of kenaf fiber filled polylactic acid (PLA) composites. However, issues in the processing of biodegradable kenaf/PLA composites and in particular composites of high-loading natural fiber lead to the lack of successful mechanical characterization of such composites and thus the need for analytical tools in understanding the effect of key factors such as the filler content, agglomeration and aspect ratio on the elastic response of kenaf/PLA composites. This work focuses on the use of micromechanical models such as the Halpin-Tsai and Tandon-Weng on the tensile properties of calendering processed kenaf/PLA bio-composites with incorporation of the level of agglomeration and aspect ratio of fillers through a data fitting manner. Tensile testing was performed to evaluate the effect of kenaf fiber on the tensile performance of the fabricated part and the verification of the models prediction. The results exhibited the sensitivity of the tensile modulus of the biocomposites on the filler content, aspect ratio and level of dispersion of kenaf. The variation in the tensile modulus and strength of the fabricated composites was correlated to the crystallinity of the PLA matrix and actual level of agglomeration at high filler loading.

biocomposites, tensile behavior, micromechanics, polylactic acid, kenaf fiber