Tensile Test of Fly Ash-Polypropylene Hybrid Composite Via Ansys Simulation

Abstract

The utilization of power plant by various nations is the direct result from the need to satisfy the
ever increasing demand for electricity. One of the major drawback for the use of power plant is
the resulting fly-ash waste. The goal of this study was to investigate the tensile strength of a newly
developed fly-ash-polypropylene (PP) hybrid composite via Finite Element Analysis (FEA)
simulation. Four (4) types of hybrid composite were simulated in this study which were: (i) 100%
PP, 0% fly-ash, (ii) 90% PP, 10% fly-ash, (iii) 80% PP, 20% fly-ash, and (iv) 70% PP, 30% flyash. The properties of the composite for four (4) different samples were obtained from the literature
and via calculations. The results showed that shows that for sample 1, 2, 3 and 4; the maximum
stress of 20.218 MPa, 20.171 MPa, 16.859 MPa and 15.37 MPa were simulated. Furthermore, only
sample 1 managed to record the factor of safety to be above 1.0. Hence, it is safe to deduce that
tensile strength of the newly developed fly-ash- polypropylene hybrid composite is decreasing
with the increasing percentage of fly-ash. The reduction in tensile strength proves that there is the
absent of a chemical bond between the polypropylene and fly-ash. Further addition of fly-ash onto
the hybrid composite increases the material linear elastic fracture because of creation of lager
defect. Therefore, the fly-ash-polypropylene hybrid composite is not suitable for the engineering
application where tensile strength matters the most. For future studies, other types of mechanical
properties assessment is recommended to be conducted on the fly-ash-recycled-plastic hybrid
composite.