AKINDAPO Jacob Olaitan^1,, AGOV Emmanuel Terhemen¹, GARBA Danladi King¹, OGABI Rapheal Oluwatoyin²

A comparative assessment of mechanical behaviour of groundnut shell and rice husks as reinforcement in epoxy matrix has been investigated in this work. Six specimen each of groundnut shell reinforced epoxy and rice husk reinforced epoxy composites having 2.5%, 5%. 7.5%, 10%, 12.5% and 15% content of groundnut shell and rice husk were produced using the hand lay up technique and their mechanical properties (impact strength, hardness, flexural strength and tensile strength) were evaluated. The highest mechanical properties of the groundnut shell reinforced epoxy composites were: impact strength (7.91 J/mm² at 12.5%), hardness (7.8 HRF at 5%), flexural strength (43.43 N/mm² at 12.5% ) and tensile strength (41.60 N/mm² at 2.5%) while the highest mechanical properties for the rice husk reinforced epoxy composites were: impact strength (4.91 J/mm² at 7.5%), hardness (8.7 HRF at 2.5%), flexural strength (28.21 N/mm² at 5%) and tensile strength (16.67 N/mm² at 5%). Results of this research work indicated that the groundnut shell reinforced epoxy composites have superior mechanical properties as compared to the rice husk reinforced epoxy composites. Since impact strength is the most important property in bumper design, sample E_GSC with 12.5% groundnut shell was prepared and used for the production of Bajaj tricycle rear bumper.

epoxy, groundnut shell, matrix, reinforcement, rice husk