Tensile Test of Fly-Ash-HDPE Hybrid Composite Via Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

Fly-ash is one of the major wastes resulted from the power plant that generates electricity. In
ensuring environmental sustainability, this waste should be properly disposed or utilized for other
possible purposes. The goal of this study was to investigate the tensile strength of a newly
developed fly-ash-high-density polyethylene (HDPE) hybrid composite via Finite Element
Analysis (FEA) simulation. Four (4) types of hybrid composite were simulated in this study which
were: (i) 100% HDPE with 0% fly-ash, (ii) 90% HDPE with 10% fly-ash, (iii) 80% HDPE with
20% fly-ash, and (iv) 70% HDPE with 30% fly-ash. The properties of the composite for four (4)
different samples were obtained from the literature and via calculations. It was observed that the
maximum stresses for samples 1, 2, 3 and 4 were 19.21MPa, 16.95MPa, 23.45MPa and 24.57MPa,
respectively. The yield strengths were 26.1 MPa, 16.3 MPa, 22.5 MPa, and 23.7 MPa. It can be
deduced that the tensile strength of the composite is increasing but the yielding strength is
fluctuating. Furthermore, only sample 1 managed to record the factor of safety to be above 1.0.
Non-homogeneity might be the cause of the values to fluctuate. For future studies, other types of
mechanical properties assessment are recommended to be conducted on the fly-ash-HDPE hybrid
composite.