SUMMARY
RICKZON S. The Construction Design and Technical Testing of Pineapple Leaf Fibre Connecting Equipment Using Heater System (Supervised by AMIN REJO and ENDO ARGO KUNCORO).
The research objective was to design and to test the pineapple leaf fibre connecting equipment using polyvinyl alcohol and electrical element heater as well as to determine the draw force of the resulting pineapple leaf fibre.
This study was consisted of five stages. The first stage was preliminary study, the second was equipment construction, the third was technical analysis, the fourth was equipment testing, and the fifth was fibre testing.
The results showed that the connecting process using pineapple leaf fibre connecting equipment with heating system had produced relatively good quality fibre which in turn helped the local craftsman in production of pineapple leaf fibre having good draw force value for weaving venture.
The pineapple leaf fibre connecting equipment with heating system had capacity of 0.02124 kg/Hour which was operated by two operators. It had maximum operating temperature of 800C which reached an evenly distributed temperature within 45 minutes period, whereas the power requirement was 317.3 W.
The dry test result on draw force of fibre showed that connecting process with polyvinyl alcohol produced better yield than that of knot connection. Draw force value of fibre for connecting process with polyvinyl alcohol was 0,595 1010 N/m2, whereas draw force value of fibre for knot connection was 0,136 1010 N/m2. The draw force of fibre using wet test showed that draw force value of fibre for connecting process with polyvinyl alcohol was 0,066 1010 N/m2 , whereas draw force value of fibre for knot connection was 0,083 1010 N/m2.
The curly test of fibre showed that connecting process with polyvinyl alcohol had lower curly value with magnitude of 1.182 %. This value was less than that of knot connection with magnitude of 1.792 %. The latter value was bigger than that of curly value before connection with magnitude of 1.284 %.
I. PENDAHULUAN
A. Latar Belakang

