Mechano-Chemically Activated Fly-Ash and Sisal Fiber Reinforced PP Hybrid Composite With Enhanced Mechanical Properties

This study explores the hybridizing effect of mechano-chemical activated fly-ash (FA) in sisal fiber reinforced polymer composites. Activation and resistance against agglomeration of FA has been achieved by modifying it with 2, 4, and 6 wt.% of the cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (C‑tab). FA activation with C-tab and particle size reduction to nano-level (<1µm) have been appropriately achieved with a planetary ball milling and the same has been confirmed from the dynamic light scattering technique. The hybrid composite containing 25 wt.% of sisal fiber and 5 wt.% of (6 wt.% C-tab) treated FA shows much improved tensile (40.12 MPa), flexural (53.27 MPa), and impact strengths (0.75 kJ/m2) than that of neat PP and composite reinforced with only 30 wt.% of sisal fiber. This increase in tensile and flexural strength was 30.54% and 48% higher than neat PP. Maximum notched impact strength of 0.80 kJ/m2 have been reported by hybrid composite containing FA treated with 2 wt.% of the C-tab. Micromechanical modelling using a combination of rule of mixture and inverse rule of mixture separately with Halpin-Tsai predicted a value close to the experimental Young’s modulus. DSC studies showed an increment in the composite's crystallinity upon fiber addition. Morphological analysis of the hybrid composite revealed good wettability of reinforcing fiber and FA within the matrix, whereas TGA showed an improved thermal stability of the composites.

Two-different ways of synthesis for EG: Study of mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties of epoxy composite for TIMs

The current study reports the synthesis of expanded graphite (EG) in two different ways and its fabrication with epoxy matrix to form composite at various filler fractions (5, 10, 12.5). One type EG (EG-C) is prepared by the electrochemical process using natural graphite flake (NGF), concentrated sulfuric acid, and ammonium persulfate, while the other (EG-P) is just mixing and heating of NGF with zinc nitrate hexahydrate. The functional groups of synthesized EG were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The surface morphology and microstructure of synthesized filler (EG-C, EG-P) were studied using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. An optimum through-plane thermal conductivity (TC) of 2.04 and 2.22 W/mK was observed in the case of the composites containing 12.5 wt% of EG-C and EG-P, respectively. The obtained experimental TC was compared with three numerical thermal models, that is, inverse rule of mixture, Maxwell–Eucken model, and Agari model. Furthermore, the thermal stability of both composites was compared by using a thermogravimetric analyzer. The electrical resistivity of EG-P/epoxy composite at different formulations was higher than the EG-C-filled epoxy composites.

Efficient Steady-State Computation for Wear of Multimaterial Composites

Traditionally, iterative schemes have been used to predict evolving material profiles under abrasive wear. In this work, more efficient continuous formulations are presented for predicting the wear of tribological systems. Following previous work, the formulation is based on a two parameter elastic Pasternak foundation model. It is considered as a simplified framework to analyze the wear of multimaterial surfaces. It is shown that the evolving wear profile is also the solution of a parabolic partial differential equation (PDE). The wearing profile is proven to converge to a steady-state that propagates with constant wear rate. A relationship between this velocity and the inverse rule of mixtures or harmonic mean for composites is derived. For cases where only the final steady-state profile is of interest, it is shown that the steady-state profile can be accurately and directly determined by solving a simple elliptic differential system—thus avoiding iterative schemes altogether. Stability analysis is performed to identify conditions under which an iterative scheme can provide accurate predictions and several comparisons between iterative and the proposed formulation are made. Prospects of the new continuous wear formulation and steady-state characterization are discussed for advanced optimization, design, manufacturing, and control applications.

SPECTRAL PROPERTIES OF REVERSIBLE ONE-DIMENSIONAL CELLULAR AUTOMATA

Reversible cellular automata are invertible dynamical systems characterized by discreteness, determinism and local interaction. This article studies the local behavior of reversible one-dimensional cellular automata by means of the spectral properties of their connectivity matrices. We use the transformation of every one-dimensional cellular automaton to another of neighborhood size 2 to generalize the results exposed in this paper. In particular we prove that the connectivity matrices have a single positive eigenvalue equal to 1; based on this result we also prove the idempotent behavior of these matrices. The significance of this property lies in the implementation of a matrix technique for detecting whether a one-dimensional cellular automaton is reversible or not. In particular, we present a procedure using the eigenvectors of these matrices to find the inverse rule of a given reversible one-dimensional cellular automaton. Finally illustrative examples are provided.

Experimental Evaluation of a Steady-State Model for the Wear of Particle-Filled Polymer Composite Materials

A model for the steady-state wear behavior of polymer composite materials, including the effects of preferential load support by and surface accumulation of wear-resistant filler particles, is further developed. It is shown that the resultant inverse rule-of-mixtures description of steady-state composite wear rate behavior is independent of the assumed form of filler contact pressure, though preferential load support does affect the degree of surface accumulation of filler particles that occurs. The validity of these descriptions of steady-state wear behavior and surface accumulation as functions of bulk filler volume fraction are investigated by experiments with copper particle-filled PTFE composites for bulk filler volume fractions from 0 to 40 percent. The applicability of the description of surface accumulation for this composite system was limited to bulk filler volume fractions less than 20 percent, a hypothesized result of transition in load-sharing between filler and matrix. The inverse rule-of-mixtures description of steady-state wear rate, however, was maintained over the full range of volume fractions investigated.

Influence of Ceramic Content and Additives on the Abrasion Resistance of Arc Sprayed Stainless Steel-TiB2 Coatings

Arc sprayed coatings are attractive means to protect components from abrasion wear provided they contain enough hard phases. Because of their hardness and toughness 316LTiB2 cermets were selected as the basis for developing wear resistant coatings. Core wires composed of 304 stainless steel sheaths filled with 10 to 65 wt % TiB2, 1 to 15 wt % additives and remaining 316L stainless steel were fabricated and arc sprayed with air. The arc sprayed stainless steel-TiB2 coatings were submitted to the ASTM G65-B abrasion test and the volume loss was measured with an optical profilometer. As expected, the volume loss decreases and the proportion of TiB2 increases. However, large differences in volume loss between coatings that contain about the same volumetric proportion of hard phases cannot be explained by a linear reationship. The inverse rule of mixing was proposed. This inverse rule of mixing was found particularly useful for determining the influence of additives. Tin, added in the core as a fugitive liquid transfer agent, was found to improve the wear resistance of coatings. These advanced arc sprayed stainless steel-TiB2 coatings can be favorably compared with coatings obtained by arc spraying commercially available solid and core wires.