THE PERFORMANCE OF LOOFAH FIBER IN MORTAR: A PILOT STUDY ON THE COMPRESSIVE, TENSILE AND FLEXURAL STRENGTHS

The use of loofah fiber as reinforcement in composites has not been explored despite its abundance in many parts of the world. In this project work, loofah fibers at various volume fractions were used as reinforcement in low strength mortar. Various tests were conducted to determine the compressive, tensile, and flexural strengths of the loofah fiber/cement mortar. The problems that were encountered during the project were the sourcing of the loofah fiber and the pulverization process. The method used during the project was measurement by weight. When the controls of the samples were compared with loofah fiber reinforced ones in terms of compressive and flexural strengths, those with fiber were higher in strengths. The reverse was the case for tensile strength because the controls had minimal strengths than those reinforced with loofah fiber. The results showed that samples with fiber volume fraction of 4.0% and a control have highest compressive strength of 27.556KN/mm2; a control had maximum tensile strength of 2.539N/mm2; and 2.5% volume fraction of loofah fiber gave the maximum flexural strength of 19.430N/mm2.