Mechanical Engineering

Crack growth characteristics of rubbery materials are an important factor in determining the strength and durability of the materials. The present work studied three stocks composed of Natural Rubber (NR), Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR) and Polybutadiene Rubber (BRcis) filled with carbon black N330. Three percentages of (NR/SBR/BRcis) were studied, namely (40/60/0), (40/50/10) and (40/40/20). The intent was to develop the Standard Italian Perilli Recipe (SPR) for Truck Tires Sidewall manufactured in Al-Dewaniya Tires Factory that have (30NR/70SBR) filled with carbon black N550. The results of constant amplitude loading have verified the applicability of the Paris law to the flexing fatigue behaviour of truck tire sidewall components. The accumulative fatigue damage was studied by the application of Miner’s rule to variable amplitude loading and gave unacceptable safe results at both sequence (L-H) and (H-L). The recipe that has (NR/SBR/BRcis) blending with percentages of (40/50/10) was generally the best in combined properties.

The industrial/military power of any nation is attributed to its ability to produce steel. Alloys are as a result of the combination of a base material with other constituent elements. It is therefore interesting to note that for this well researched paper metallic alloys are a combination of a base metal and other constituents. The main constituents here are the carbon. It is the addition of carbon that change metals to an engineering material, thus, various constituents of carbon carbides can be constituted to give different categories of steel alloys which can be used to produce different spare parts. With various production methods, these steel alloys can be better appreciated by what it can be used to accomplish.

The study aimed at designing an efficient low cost poultry feather plucker with the main objective of ensuring that the machine improves the hygiene, food safety and defeathering processes in poultry meat production. The machine is made up of four main parts viz: the frame, prime mover, plucker drum, and plucker fingers. The study reveals that for the aim to be realized, an electric motor of 0.5hp with 2300rpm is needed to transmit a torque of 1226.25Nmm through a mild steel shaft of 10mm diameter to a plucker drum of mass 2.5kg which has 24 polypropylene plucker fingers mounted on it. The study estimated the cost of producing the machine to be $98 and considers the design safe since the FoS of the drum has a minimum value of 8 and a maximum value of 56; shear strength of the drum falls below the shear stress of Aluminum

This work focused on the effect of groundnut paste fineness modulus on the quantity of oil extractable. Three samples of peeled roasted groundnut seeds A, B, and C weighing 14kg each were ground at different machine speeds of 310rpm, 250rpm, and 230rpm respectively. The energy expended in the extraction process using the IAR kneader was found to be 923J, 1043J, and 203J for samples A, B,and C respectively. Results revealed that the extraction efficiency increases as the value of fineness modulus decreases. The results also revealed that the energy requirement decreases as the fineness modulus value decreases.

In recent days most of the automotive parts are manufactured with different materials which will increase the weight of the vehicle and the materials also cannot be recycled. But with the European union and Asian countries stringent norms on automotive end life i.e the parts should be recycled. This made the researchers to use natural fibers in composite materials. With their low cost, low density, stiffness, high specific strength and biodegradable characteristics, they are considered as perfect replacement for conventional fibers. This has resulted in creation of more awareness about the use of natural fibers based materials mainly composites. The properties of the composites mainly depend on the interfacial adhesion between the matrix and the fibers. The present study aims at the mechanical properties namely tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength of the composites. In the present work the composite is produced with good compressive strength (Egg shell) and tensile strength (coconut coir) materials and is further tested for various mechanical properties. The results indicated that these composites are very good for automotive applications.

The Mechanical ore handling plant in Goa, India comprises of receiving and shipping section. Receiving section deals with the unloading of ore from barge. This is accomplished by wire rope operated grab un-loader. Since the unloading is being done round the clock, frequent failure of wire rope is observed. The unloading process gets disrupted when the wire rope fails. This results in significant loss in unloading hours. Detailed investigation is carried out to reduce the down time and recommendations regarding maintenance are made in this paper. Details of the maintenance policy model and results and discussions carried out are presented in this paper.

In this paper the numerical study of unsteady flow of a viscous incompressible fluid past an exponentially accelerated infinite vertical plate with radiation, viscous dissipation, chemical reaction and variable heat and mass diffusion have been analyzed in the porous medium. To obtain the non-similar momentum, energy, and concentration equations usual non-dimensional variables have been used. The dimensionless governing equations are solved numerically by explicit finite difference method. Here velocity, temperature and concentration fields are described graphically for the different physical parameters. Skin friction and Nusselt number profiles have been also described graphically here.

This work focused at designing and fabricating of an aluminium mould for the production of motorcycle brake lever. The pattern making, sand mould and the casting are the major step used to achieve the work. The thermal stress exerted on the mould stood at 0.67GPa which did not exceed the permissible thermal stress for aluminium. In the design of the motorcycle brake lever, it was discovered that a force of 0.58N is required to operate the lever at an effective length of 9cm from the motorcycle head. It shows that the production of motorcycle brake lever can be done locally since aluminium is largely available in the country and hence recommends that more effort should be put in by the Nigerian government for sustainability and development in this area.

This paper presents effective method and to determine optimal machining parameters in a turning operation on annealed Beryllium copper alloy to enhance the metal removal rate and minimize the surface roughness. The scope of this work is extended to Multi objective optimization. Response Surface Methodology is opted for preparing the design matrix. Artificial Neural Networks are used to train and validate the data prepared through experimentations. Multi Objective Genetic Algorithm is used for optimization of the performance measures of the process. A powerful model would be obtained with high accuracy to analyse the effect of each parameter on the output. The input parameters considered in this work are cutting speed, feed and depth of cut.

A CFD analysis was done to numerically study the heat transfer characteristics of an oil cooler under laminar flow conditions with varying Reynolds number from 250 to 2400 with ISOVG46 Turbinol on tube side and water on shell side for different flow rates. Simulated results of Nusselt number and friction factor are in good agreement with the available experimental results and with the Sieder and Tate equation for plain tube. Results show that the strip inserts led to a higher heat transfer rates over the plain tube with increase in Nusselt number, friction factor and over all enhancement ratios.