An Investigation of the Distribution of Stress and Strain in Date Palm Fibers Employing Finite element Analysis

The use of plant fibers in producing different industrial products has attracted the attention of many researchers. Plant fibers, in comparison with industrial ones, are degraded faster in nature and are more environments friendly. One of the major conventional uses of plant fibers is the production of traditional ropes which are subjected to tensile forces. However, the traditional ropes bear rough surfaces, working with which becomes a difficult task. By reducing the lignin content of the fibers and their coverage them with polymeric materials, their surface roughness will be moderated. In this research, mechanical properties of the ropes, prepared from either raw or polymeric treated fibers, including tensile strength, modulus of elasticity and strain under tensile loads were assessed. The distributions of stress and strain within the ropes were modeled in ANSYS using solid mechanical equations. The maximum tensile force supported by the ropes prepared from 10 single raw fibers was 172N which was increased to 400N by reducing their lignin content and while having them covered with PVA resin. Moduli of elasticity for these ropes were found out as 600 and 250 MPa, respectively. The distribution models for stress and strain within the ropes revealed that the rupture point occurred at a point with a distance of about 25% of the length of the rope, away from the fixed end of the rope. The practical tensile test indicated a verification of these findings too.