**4.2 Tensile strength properties for composite sheet material**

Samples are tested on DAK series 7200 machine (a universal testing machine) and tensile strength is recorded. The values are depicted in **Table 8**.

It can be observed from **Table 8** and **Figure 12** that at pulp ratio of 35%, a thickness level of 4 mm and 8 mm gives the highest tensile strength value 4.95 Mpa and 7.58 Mpa, respectively. It may be due to the higher density for composite sheet according to **Table 7**. The maximum tensile strength obtained for corn leaf fibre ratio (35%) may also be due to good bonding between epoxy and fibre pulp ratio, and approximately hexagonal structure of cellulose present in the sugarcane leaves fibre gives high flexibility to the fibre. Further, higher tensile strength may be attributed to the more energy transfer to the fibres by the matrix [17, 18].

With pulp ratio (55%) in composite sheet and for both 4 mm and 8 mm thickness, low tensile strength has been observed. It may be due to increase in pulp ratio % decreases density as reported earlier. The decrease in tensile strength with increase in pulp ratio (%) may be due to increase in voids created by air entrapment due to small-size particles. The tensile strength for neat epoxy is very less, which shows that there is decrease in strength in composite and less density that may be due to weak adhesion between fibre pulp and matrix, which causes no proper transfer of energy to the fibres by matrix.
