Mechanical Performance of Wood Glue, CNF and Coir Fiber Composites

Common wood glue is a widely available material for domestic applications. Given its adhesion properties, it is possible to create a low cost composites using such reinforcements as coir fiber to create a material that can be used for domestic repairs. In this work, a new multiscale composite material was developed using wood glue matrix reinforced with carbon nanofibers and coir fiber reinforcement. The main aim was to determine the suitability of such a material to be used for domestic DIY applications. According to literature, such a material has not been developed before. However, natural fiber has been used with other materials such as epoxy to form composites. A fit for purpose evaluation was conducted by testing the mechanical performance of the prepared composite specimens. It was found that mechanical properties of wood glue improved with an increase in carbon nanofiber and coir fiber content. It was also found that at low volume fractions ratios, the effect of carbon nanofibers was not significant. However, carbon nanofibers volume fraction ratios above 1% seemed to produce marginal improvement in performance. On the other hand, addition of coir fibers exhibited an increase in strength for volume factions of 2.5% to 6 %. However, the material ductility reduced significantly with increase in coir fiber volume fraction. Based on these findings, it was concluded that coir fiber / wood glue matrix composite is suitable for use in none structural domestic applications.