Research On Performance And Life Cycle Assessment Of Natural Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composites For Automobile Interior

With the emergence of serious problems such as air pollution and energy depletion,people are realized the importance of protecting the environment.In recent years,the focus of the automobile interior industry is the development of recyclable materials.Automobile interior is one of the important components of the car.It not only play a decorative role in the car,but also involves security,functionality and other aspects.Based on the green design concept,the natural fiber and polypropylene were used to prepare natural fiber composite materials for automobile interior.In this paper,the matrix and reinforcement were selected to make composite firstly.The preparation of composite materials was determined with PP as the matrix and natural jute fiber as the reinforcement.In the preparation of composites,alkali and succinic anhydride were used to preliminary treat the jute fiber.The preparation of jute fiber/PP composites was using an extrusion-injection molding process.The effects of different proportions of jute and different pretreatment methods on the properties of jute fiber/PP composites were studied.The differences of microstructures and phase properties were analyzed and discussed.The experimental results show that the chemically treated composites are better than those without the pretreatment,both in tensile and bending properties.In terms of tensile properties,in all experimental groups the jute fiber/PP composites pretreated with succinic anhydride were the best when the ratio of jute was 15%,relative to the matrix material PP tensile strength increased by 27%,tensile modulus increased by 59%.In terms of bending performance,the jute fiber/PP composites treated with succinic anhydride in all the experimental groups were the best when the ratio of jute was 10%,and the flexural strength of PP was increased by 19%,Flexural modulus increased by 92%.In terms of the same pretreatment,the water absorption of all the composite groups increased with the increase of the proportion of jute.When the proportion of jute was the same,the water absorption of jute fiber/PP composites pretreated with succinic anhydride was significantly lower than that of the other two groups.The interior trim panel was taken as an example for rigidity simulation verification.The finite element model of the door trim was established,and the material parameters with the best performance in the experimental group were brought into the simulation analysis.The jute fiber/PP composites prepared in this paper are meet the design requirements by rigidity simulation verification.GaBi software was used to quantitatively evaluate the life cycle of jute fiber/PP composites.Several important influencing factors of environmental factors were obtained.It is concluded that the jute fiber/PP door trim panels are more environmentally friendly in the life cycle than the interior trim panels of existing materials.Natural fiber composite materials may be widely used in automobile interior parts,and replace the chemical fiber composite materials in the future.The jute fiber/PP composites prepared in this paper not only meet the design requirements of automobile interior parts in the mechanical properties,but also meet the requirement of sustainable development and environmentally friendly.