OPTIMISATION STUDIES ON THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF NEEM BARK FLOUR-FILLED HIGH DENSITY POLYETHYLENE COMPOSITES USING CENTRAL COMPOSITE DESIGN.

This research is carried out to study the effect of filler content and the particle size on the mechanical properties of neem bark flour-filled high density polyethylene composites. The fiber was characterized. Response surface methodology was used to optimize the preparation of the composite. A second order polynomial model was developed to predict the mechanical properties based on central composite design. The results show that the neem bark used for this study contains 9.04% lignin, 65.43% cellulose, 23.55% hemicellulose. It was found that the composite design was best fit for a quadratic regression model. The selected optimum condition for this composite is 21.63 mesh particle size and 40wt% filler content at 77.7% desirability. The mechanical properties at optimum are 14.51MPa, 5.28%, 0.45GPa, 92.31KJ/m2, and 242.14Pa for tensile strength, percentage elongation, tensile modulus, impact strength and hardness respectively. The optimum conditions were validated with little error less than 0.2%.