Experimental Study on Optimization of Thermal Properties of Groundnut Shell Particle Reinforced Polymer Composites

Recently, thermoplastic and thermoset polymers are combined with natural fillers to produce the composites, which possess better strength and good resistance to fracture. Due to an excellent property profile, these composites find wide applications in packaging, building and civil engineering fields. The present work aims to elucidate the optimization of thermal properties such as thermal conductivity, linear thermal expansion and specific heat of groundnut shell particles reinforced polymer composite materials. The composite specimens were prepared with different weight percentages of randomly distributed groundnut shell particles in polymer matrix. The experiments were planned as per Taguchi L9orthogonal array. The analysis of means (ANOM) was performed to determine the optimal parameter levels and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to identify the level of importance of the parameters on each of the properties. TGA and DSC analyses were also carried out to ascertain the thermal stability of these composites. The results revealed that using groundnut shell particles as reinforcement for polymer matrix could successfully develop beneficial composites and can be used for thermal applications.