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Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Natural Fiber/Concrete Composites for Sustainable Building Applications

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This study evaluates the thermal insulation, thermal stability, and mechanical properties of concrete containing six types of natural fibers such as bamboo, flax, palm, chicken feathers, wool and silk at various weight percentages (2.5, 5, and 10 wt%). The thermal properties of the composites were determined by their thermal conductivity along with tensile strength, compressive strength, SEM, FTIR and TGA. It is observed that an increase in the percentage of natural fibers greatly decreased the thermal conductivity, where the 10 wt% bamboo and 10 wt% chicken feathers had thermal conductivities of 0.034 W/mK and 0.062 W/mK, respectively, whereas the thermal conductivity of plain concrete is found to be 1.086 W/mK. The chicken feather/concrete composite has maximum tensile strength of 7.26 MPa at 5 wt% and compressive strength of 86.72 MPa at 10 wt%, which is an improvement of 201% and 57.7% over the strength of plain concrete. From the SEM analysis that the chicken feather, silk and palm fibers showed good fiber-matrix interaction, and FTIR analysis supported the changes in structure and hydrogen bonding after fracture. Regarding the TGA results, flax/concrete composites have the highest thermal stability, while chicken feather composites experienced the highest mass loss at high temperatures.

Source: Journal of Natural Fibers

DOI: 10.1080/15440478.2026.2731518