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Recently, natural fillers have gain huge interest among the academic researchers and scientists to be used as potential reinforcement material in polymeric matrix composites. The various reasons which attract the scientific community toward it usage in polymer composites are its low cost, ample availability, easy processing and the most important is the growing concern towards environmental awareness as they are bio-degradable. Reinforcing natural fillers is also an efficient approach towards waste management as most of the promising natural fillers were dumped if not used. Following the similar trend, an attempt has been made to utilize pistachio shells as a filler material in polymeric resin for developing a composite body. Pistachio shell with particle size 75 micron is used with epoxy matrix in present investigation. Six sets of epoxy based composites are fabricated using hand lay-up method by varying the filler content upto 30 wt. %. Density of the composites is evaluated using Archimedes principle. Micrographs are taken to visualize the compatibility between filler and matrix body. Tensile strength, compressive strength, flexural strength and hardness are the various mechanical properties evaluated of the developed materials. From the experimental analysis, it has been found that, all the mechanical properties of the composite under consideration increases with filler content. Though increase in density is also observed with filler loading but the increment is marginal. On the basis of experimental findings, it can be concluded that the developed material can be gainfully found its application in light duty structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Castings play a vital part in all branches of engineering. The use of casting in the manufacturing industry is increased. In modern practices, a typical casting process consists of six different stages: molding, melting, alloying, pouring, solidification, and finishing. In each step, a high level of precision and control of the process is required. This work aims to critically assess the parameters that influence the casting process when an experiment using non-metallic multi-materials in sand casting process is carried out. The several sand-casting process parameters such as mold filling and solidification time etc. were analysed for the cast product, which is a truncated rectangular pyramid. The results revealed that physical, chemical, and mechanical properties alters when two non-metallic materials, such as hot melt adhesive (HMA) and paraffin wax is combined. The obtained results were analyzed by comparing them with the metallic material in the present work. This project aims to analyse and identify the various aspects of the sand-casting process of these two different non-metallic materials based on experts' available knowledge and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High strength-to-weight ratio, high temperature stability, and bio-compatibility makes Ti6Al4V alloy an interesting choice for aerospace, automobile, chemical, and bio-medical industries. In spite of the several attractive properties, the application of the alloy is restricted in sliding interfaces. As a result, many studies, involving surface modifications of the alloy or the tribo-pair in general have surfaced for improvement in tribological properties. The details of tribological behavior of un-modified Ti6Al4V alloy in various operating and environmental conditions, can act as an initial data for the future researches aimed at improving its tribological properties. Thus, the present review is an attempt to put together the studies conducted to evaluate the sliding wear behavior of Ti6Al4V in both dry and lubricated condition at the room temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, natural fibers attract the scientific community towards it usage as reinforcement in polymeric composites mainly because of environmental awareness, growing concern and multiple benefits like low cost, huge/easy availability, easy processing. Reinforcing natural fibers is an efficient approach towards reducing the consumption of non-biodegradable plastic material. Though, the major drawbacks of such composites are poor compatibility between the two distinct phases and high rate of water absorption. It has been observed that with this drawback, degradation of different mechanical and thermal properties generally occurs. Keeping this in mind, in present work, the surface of the sisal fibers are modified with aqueous solution of NaOH at different concentration prior to reinforce it in epoxy matrix. Later, water absorption rate of the developed material is evaluated over a period of one week where measurement is taken after every 24 hours. Results obtained indicate that with surface modified sisal fiber, water absorption rate decreases appreciably. Further, it is also determined that rate of water absorption is minimum with 2 Mole NaOH concentrations. Also, the density is measured and evaluated theoretically to know the void content in the fabricated samples [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]