Search

Wettability of composite is one of key to increase mechanical properties of composite that affected by structure of reinforcement and type of resin used. Therefore, this research focused on the effect of orientation, density and surface treatment on fiber to the characteristic of composite’s wettability, which is observed by contact angle and wetting time. The fiber used in this research is fiberglass, and the method for contact angle measurement is direct observation from the camera recorder and the data record will be processed and analyzed by using image processing method. The result for those variations can be obtained from the relation of variations toward contact angle and wetting time. According to result of research, fiber with orientation 45°/45° gives lower contact angle but longer wetting time than fiber with orientation 0°/90°. For orientation 45°/45°, the differences in wetting time is 15 second longer than orientation 0°/90°. In case of fiber density, the sheet with fiber density of 900 has 7 second faster for wetting time than sheet with fiber density of 1250. The surface treatment with NaOH 5% can accelerate the wetting time until 10 second.

The non‐halogen UPR‐based fire retardant composites are successfully made by combining the hydroxide additives and carbon black. The composites are synthesized by varying the concentration of carbon black (2.5, 5, 7.5, 10 % wt) respectively, at the constant concentration of Al(OH)3 40 % wt, and Mg(OH)2 10 % wt. The flammability of fire retardant composite is studied by using UL‐94 V flammability test to investigate the ignition time, burning time, and time taken to retard the fire. While the thermal stability of composite is characterized by thermal gravimetric analysis. The flammability test result shows that the addition of carbon black at all concentration with the constant concentration of hydroxide additives could improve the fire retardancy of composite by increasing the time to ignition, reducing the burning time, and gave V‐0 flammability rating. Moreover, the utilization of carbon black 2.5 % wt can enhance the thermal stability of composite by increasing the decomposition temperature, decreasing the mass loss rate, and total mass loss. The morphology of the composite before and after the flammability test are also tested to study the changes of the material structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]