6th EAI International Conference on

Advancement of Science and Technology

Investigations of the Influence of Fiber Orientation on

Strength Properties of Agrostone Composites
Presented by Mulugeta Eshetu

Oct 5-7 2018 Bahirdar, Ethiopia

Layout
Introduction
• Background
• Problem statement
• Objective
Material and methodology
Result
Conclusion and Recommendation

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 Introduction
• Background
A composite material can be define as a combination of two or
more macro constituents that differ in shape and chemical
composition and which are insoluble in each other. That results in
better properties than those of the individual components used
alone.

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They are different types of composite materials, Among those fibrous composite
material Agrostone is one of the basic materials that used for construction and Home
Appliance Industry and it composed of Magnesium oxide Powder (MgO), Magnesium
Chloride (𝑀𝑔𝐶12 ), waste recyclable bagasse, Fiber Glass and Pumice.

Different types of fiber orientations

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and Technology
 Con..
In most of the developing countries, like in Ethiopia the availability of
alternative building materials and the introduction of advanced
construction technology are very much limited. Moreover, the cost of
available materials is very expensive and its share is about 70% of the
total cost of the construction.
At this time, Ethiopia has little experience in the utilization of different
construction materials. Those materials are produced from mortar,
gypsum, clay, limestone and other excavated from the ground. The
demand of these building materials is not compatible with the supply
increasing due to this impact the cost of cement and other construction
materials this shows a need to focus on alternative building materials
produce from magnesium oxide, fiberglass and mineral products with
relatively low price and much higher strength than the ordinary hollow
concrete blocks

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  Problem statement
On the base of housing problem and the cost of building material rises the
construction of low-cost houses was taken as an important measure and for
these The agrostone production plant, which is expect to relieve these
problems by produce different size agrostone boards. However In the
production, process of Agrostone in Ethiopia the manufacturer is using random
fiber arrangement.
This leads to variation in the strength characteristics of one lot from the other
by varying fiber orientation. In addition, out of 10 boards 2 of them are failed
due to lack of impact and compressive load due to this total of 20% of the
production is out of use and it cause loss of more than 450 BIRR per each
board and totally 9000 BIRR loss from 100 boards. The basic reason of these
damages are week strength of the board and that related to the composition
of raw material parameters and arrangement of fiber orientation.
An attempt that made in this work is to test and investigate the influence of
fiberglass orientation on the mechanical properties of agrostone like tensile,
compressive and bending of the material experimentally to reduce the failures
cause due to those factors.

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 Objectives
• The main objective of this project is to test and investigate the influence
of fiber orientation on mechanical properties of Agrostone at different
fiberglass arrangement, prepare an organized document and to
recommend an appropriate fiberglass orientation for the advancement
of the new agrostone material with better strength and properties.

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 Material and methodology
• Materials
The material that used for this laboratory analysis was collected from
Bahirdar Agrostone factory. Those materials are
 Magnesium oxide Powder (MgO)
Magnesium Chloride (𝑀𝑔𝐶12 )
waste recyclable bagasse
Fiber Glass and
Pumice.

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• Methodology
Mold preparation
A mould is made up of plastic material with a dimension of ASTM standard is prepared.
Casting of the composite materials is done in this mould by hand layup process. Later
specimens are cut from the prepared casting according to the ASTM Standards.

Specimen preparation
Agrostone Production Center mix proportion is for 3 boards are
 76 Kg Magnesium Oxide
 100L Magnesium Chloride
 8Kg bagasse
 13 Kg pumice powder
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Based on this we use
 1.5 kg of Magnesium Oxide (MgO) powder
2 liters of Magnesium Chloride (MgC12)
0.2 kg of pumice powder
0.15 kg bagasse and
0.06 kg of fiberglass
The mix work done in an open pan type mixer of 4-liter
capacity. The casting of the composite made by hand layup
process for different fiber orientations such as 00, 450, 900,
cross and random, as shown below
Hand layup techniques Preparation of Specimens for
Testing

The specimen samples are cut from the molded composite

by a size of
 (250x25x2.5) mm as per ASTM D-3039 for tensile
 (155x25x3) mm as per ASTM D-3410 for compressive
 (127x12.7x3) mm as per ASTM D-790 for bending

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Testing of Specimens
• calibrated universal testing machine (UTM) for tensile, compressive
and bending specimens by appropriately changing the grips and the
loading procedure

Specimens on the UTM

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  Result
• Tensile Strength compressive strength

Fiber orientation Strength in MPa Fiber orientation Strength in MPa

00 191.87 00 178
450 144 450 148
900 146 900 172
Cross 156 Cross 174
Random 145 Random 166
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 Con..
• Bending
Fiber orientation Strength in MPa

00 160

450 153

900 142

Cross 181

Random 173

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 Conclusion and recommendation
• The tensile and compressive strength values for 00 fibers orientation 191.87
MPa and 178 MPa respectively is much higher compared to other
orientations. The compressive strength values are higher for 900, cross and
random fiber orientation compared to tensile strength values. For 450
orientation, the strength values are minimum in both the cases. It clearly
indicates that the strength of composite has higher bearing on the strength
of the reinforcing fibers. Especially, it is higher if the loading is in the
direction of fiber orientation.
• It can be concluded that 00, can be preferred for composites with a general
kind of loading compared to other fiber orientation and recommended to
the agrostone factories to use 00 orientations composite material to
upgrade the exist material properties by a better strength material. For the
future studies by vary mixing ratio of raw material we can get different
properties of composite.
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