Estudio de las Propiedades Mecánicas de los Haces de Fibras de Guadua Angustifolia Kunth Ecuatoriana Extraída a Partir de Diferentes Métodos

The bamboo subspecies "Guadua Angustifolia Kunth" (GAK) from Ecuador was used as raw material. Two insulation routes were evaluated, the first route was through a mechanical extraction process using a milling machine and the second technique was through a thermo-mechanical extraction process using Steam Explosion, which allowed obtaining fiber bundles with severities of 3.3, 3.6 and 3.8. Then, the fiber bundles were conditioned to evaluate the performance of the extraction routes, through tensile tests, evaluating their mechanical properties, specifically the modulus of elasticity and tensile strength. In addition, the effect of the calibration lengths (span) on the tensile strength of the fiber bundles was evaluated. Two different spans, 10mm and 15mm, were evaluated. When comparing the results obtained experimentally, it was determined that the best extraction method is through the thermo-mechanical technique known as Steam Explosion using a severity of 3.3 with span 10 for tensile strength and span 15 for the modulus of elasticity. The results revealed the good resistance of the fiber bundles with potential use as reinforcing material in natural polymeric compounds. When comparing the experimental data with those reported in the literature, a good correspondence was obtained.