The sheet moulding process is completed in two steps. First, long sheet of composites is prepared with unique thickness, and then the sheets are passed through the different dimensional moulds to prepare various products. Short natural fibre is added with constant weight on carrier foil (conveyer). Resins and fillers are laid from a hopper on fibre. The mixture is then passed through the several ball mills. The prepared composite sheets are rolled with foil. The rolled composite sheets are further moulded for producing different products. Behzad and Sain (2005) estab­lished a novel processing method of natural fibre-thermoset acrylic resins with very short curing step (10 min). The final product has higher mechanical properties but needed huge establishment cost.

10.3.2.4 Pultrusion

The pultrusion technique is often investigated for natural fibre and thermoset resins (Akil et al. 2009). The yarn rolled roving is passed through the resin bath. A hot die helps them convert into profile (Van de Velde and Kiekens 2001). The profile then flows in profile drawer for completing cure process. The prepared composite has greater mechanical properties, but the production rate is not satisfactory. Among the above-mentioned processes, the compression moulding is a more viable method for fabrication of short OBF-PF resins in small-scale production. Short dried OBF with different weight fraction (9, 19, 29 and 38 wt%) is initially mixed thoroughly with PF resin. Composites are made using a stainless steel mould at 150 °C and 50 kN pressure. The curing is completed at room temperature for 24 h keeping the constant pressure 10 kN. The specimens for tensile and flexural tests are made by a cutting machine.