Fibers are widely used to reinforce polymer composites for various applications because of their mechanical properties and ease of manufacturing. Fiber reinforced polymers are being developed using synthetic fibers and natural fibers, including bamboo, bagasse, etc. The main goal of this work is to optimize the mechanical properties of bamboo mesoparticle/nylon 6 composites using a response surface methodology. The conditions used to achieve an optimal tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength were determined using a Box-Behnken design with three operational variables: alkali concentration, particle loading, and particle size. Based on the experimental design, experimental tests were conducted to develop a mathematical model and predict the mechanical properties of the bamboo mesoparticle/nylon 6 composites. The optimal conditions to produce a composite with a maximum tensile strength were achieved at an alkali concentration of 4 wt.%, a particle size of 1 lm, and a particle loading of 13.5 wt.%. The optimum conditions to produce a composite with a maximum flexural strength were achieved at an alkali concentration of 2 wt.%, a particle size of 1 lm, and a particle loading of 13.5 wt.%. Additionally, an alkali concentration of 4 wt.%, a particle size of 1 lm, and a particle loading of 9 wt.% produced a composite with the maximum impact strength. Overall, the results showed that the values predicted using the model correlated with the experimental values.

Gigantochloa scortechinii is one of the most well-known bamboo species in Malaysia because of its advantageous physical, morphological and strength properties. This study presented the effect of alkali treatment conditions of single cellulosic bamboo strips fiber following tensile test and optimized the parameters through response surface methodology based on central composite design. Bamboo strips fiber was treated under various alkali concentrations of 2, 4, 6 and 8 wt.% and soaking times of 1, 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24 h. Results showed that the optimum tensile strength at 4 wt.% alkali concentration and 12 h soaking time was improved by 28% compared with water retting condition. The design-Expert software was used to optimize the tensile properties of single cellulosic bamboo strips fiber. The effect of two independent variables, namely, alkali concentration and soaking time, on the optimized tensile properties of a single cellulosic bamboo strips fiber was investigated. Results showed acceptable R-2 and high R-Adj(2) correlation coefficients for tensile strength, reaching 0.6926 and 0.9575, respectively. The high R-2 and R-Adj(2) correlation coefficients for tensile modulus reached 0.9376 and 0.8931, respectively. Overall results showed that the confirmatory experiments show that the error between predicted and actual values does not exceed 5%. thus, the model can be effectively used to predict tensile properties.