%0 Journal Article %T Interfacial Adhesion Characteristics of Kenaf Fibres Subjected to Different Polymer Matrices and Fibre Treatments %A Umar Nirmal %A Saijod T. W. Lau %A Jamil Hashim %J Journal of Composites %D 2014 %R 10.1155/2014/350737 %X This study is aimed at determining the interfacial adhesion strength (IAS) of kenaf fibres using different chemical treatments in hydrochloric (HCl) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) with different concentrations. Single fibre pullout tests (SFPT) were carried out for both untreated and treated fibres partially embedded into three different polymer matrices; polyester, epoxy, and polyurethane (PU) as reinforcement blocks and tested under dry loading conditions. The study revealed that kenaf fibres treated with 6% NaOH subjected to polyester, epoxy, and PU matrices exhibits excellent IAS while poor in acidic treatment. The effect of SFPT results was mainly attributed to chemical composition of the fibres, types of fibre treatments, and variation in resin viscosities. By scanning electron microscopy examination of the material failure morphology, the fibres experienced brittle and ductile fibre breakage mechanisms after treatment with acidic and alkaline solutions. 1. Introduction Presently, critical driving forces such as cost, weight reduction coupled with increased emphasis in research on renewable materials has resulted in extensive growing interests on natural fibres for composite applications. This is due to the fact that natural fibres are less costly and have low specific weight and higher strength and stiffness than glass fibre which was previously reported by Gill and Yousif [1]. Liu et al. [2] reported that natural fibres are readily available from renewable sources, where their production requires little energy by taking in CO2 and releasing O2 back to the environment. Furthermore, Joshi et al. [3] and Quig and Dennison [4] revealed that natural fibres possess good thermal and acoustic insulating properties, low in density (i.e., low wear of tooling and no skin irritation), and are producible with low investment. However, Fukuhara [5] stated that natural fibre composites exhibit low environmental impact resistance and are subject to moist degradation that had limited their usage on nonstructural applications. Recent research by Dillon [6] showed that significant improvements of these properties can be attained via appropriate fibre treatment. As a result, treated natural fibre composites are now being used extensively in many structural applications such as natural fibre reinforced car roof and catamaran hull. Moreover, due to overwhelming interest of using natural fibres in the aforesaid, Quig and Dennison [4] and Nirmal et al. [7] have forecasted that there will be a dramatic increase of more than USD $1634 million potential on the consumption of %U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcomp/2014/350737/