A multifilament feeder was developed to achieve the high-throughput 3D printing of continuous carbon fiber–reinforced thermoplastic composites. Four filaments were supplied to the feeder and simult...

In this work, mechanical performance on sandwich composites consisting of syntactic foam filled with hollow glass microsphere in an epoxy resin matrix as the core material and hybrid kenaf/glass fi...

Composites with regenerated fiber bonded with natural fibers have attracted growing attention as the globe becomes more sustainable, ecofriendly, and environment-friendly. Pineapple leaf fiber is u...

One of the main purposes of this research is to control environmental pollution and mitigate the impact of ignorantly discarded waste plastics in the environment through recycling of such plastics and using them to develop innovative composite materials. The present work investigates the influence of stone-dust particles and bagasse fiber on the mechanical and physical properties of reinforced recycled high-density polyethylene bio-composites. The bagasse fiber was first treated with 0.5 m NaOH solution at a temperature of 50°C for 2 h in order to improve the surface morphology and also modified the mechanical properties of the fiber. Likewise, the stone-dust particles were analyzed by using a standard sieve shaker to obtain particle sizes of 75 μm. Both reinforcements were used for composite development through the compression molding technique and the samples were subjected to mechanical and physical properties tests in accordance with standards. Analysis of the results revealed that flexural, hardness, wear, and hydrophobicity of the developed bio-composites were improved by stone-dust particles. The flexural strength at peak and modulus were enhanced by 88% and 92%, respectively. Also, it was discovered that, tensile, impact and thermal conductivity properties of the bio-composites were improved by bagasse fiber. The ultimate tensile strength and Young’s modulus were enhanced by 43% and 34%, respectively. Hence, the blend of these by-products showed that they are potential bio-materials for the development of bio-composites.

Range prediction of electric vehicles requires knowledge of many parameters, including information about the vehicle environment. As an alternative to onboard measurement, external data sources (se...

Natural bamboo fibers (BFs), which were treated by silane coupling agents, reinforced epoxy resin (EP)–based composite were synthesized. Effects of the coupling agents on the chemical structures of...

Aqueous graphene oxide (GO) dispersion was used to produce fibers by wet spinning technique. In situ growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in the graphene fibers was realized by chemical vapor depositi...

Formaldehyde is ubiquitous and harmful to human body. In this study, biochar graphene and composites are prepared by hydrothermal method. According to the material properties of formaldehyde, biochar composites are used to catalyze the two ends of electrode to promote the activation reaction of formaldehyde. By analyzing the characteristics of Fourier transform infrared spectrum image, it is found that the biochar composite Cu(OH)2/C is more conducive to activate formaldehyde, which effectively improves the conductivity of the material and provides a reference for studying the effects of biochar composites on formaldehyde.

Based on the progress and advances of additive manufacturing technologies, design and production of complex structures became cheaper and therefore rather possible in the recent past. A promising example of such complex structure is a so-called pantographic structure, which can be described as a metamaterial consisting of repeated substructure. In this substructure, two planes, which consist of two arrays of beams being orthogonally aligned to each other, are interconnected by cylinders/pivots. Different inner geometries were taken into account and additively manufactured by means of fused deposition modeling technique using polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) as filament material. To further understand the effect of different manufacturing parameters on the mechanical deformation behavior, three types of specimens have been investigated by means of displacement-controlled extension tests. Different slicing approaches were implemented to eliminate process-related problems. Small and large deformations are investigated separately. Furthermore, 2D digital image correlation was used to calculate strains on the outer surface of the metamaterial. Two finite-element simulations based on linear elastic isotropic model and linear elastic transverse isotropic model have been carried out for small deformations. Standardized extension tests have been performed on 3D-printed PETG according to ISO 527-2. Results obtained from finite-element method have been validated by experimental results of small deformations. These results are in good agreement with linear elastic transverse isotropic model (up to about εxx=1.2% of axial elongation), though the response of large deformations indicates a nonlinear inelastic material behavior. Nevertheless, all samples are able to withstand outer loading conditions after the first rupture, resulting in resilience against ultimate failure.

This research aims to optimize the mechanical properties of woven fabric composites, especially the elastic modulus. A micromechanics model of woven fabric composites was used to obtain the mechanical properties of the fiber composite, and a genetic algorithm (GA) was employed for the optimization tool. The structure of the fabric fiber was expressed using the width, thickness, and wave pattern of the fiber strands in the woven fabric composites. In the GA, the chromosome string consisted of the thickness and width of the fill and warp strands, and the objective function was determined to maximize the elastic modulus of the composite. Numerical analysis showed that the longitudinal mechanical properties of the strands contributed significantly to the overall elastic modulus of the composites because the longitudinal property was notably larger than the transverse property. Therefore, to improve the in-plane elastic modulus, the resulting geometry of the composites possessed large volumes of related strands with large cross-sectional areas and small strand waviness. However, the numerical results of the out-of-plane elastic modulus generated large strand waviness, which contributed to the fiber alignment in the out-of-plane direction. The findings of this research are expected to be an excellent resource for the structural design of woven fabric composites.

To solve thickness problem for high-strength aluminum alloy used as plastic mold materials and eliminate oxide film on the surface of aluminum alloy, a new compound casting, namely impact jet solid–liquid compound casting, was developed to fabricate 3A21/7075 aluminum alloy cladding material. Then, optical microscope (OM), electron-backscattered diffraction (EBSD) technique, and transmission electron microscope (TEM) together with energy-dispersive spectrometer (EDS) were used to analyze microstructure of 3A21/7075 aluminum alloy cladding material. The OM and EBSD results showed that the 3A21/7075 aluminum alloy cladding material was composed of 3A21 cladding layer, fusion zone (FZ), heat-affected zone, and 7075 matrix. The grain morphology on both sides of FZ had great differences. Moreover, the TEM and EDS results showed that the 3A21 cladding layer showed a bulk phase and lots of fine and dispersed granular phases, while the 7075 matrix appeared undetermined strip phases and amounts of fine and dispersed rod-like phases. Moreover, FZ existed a great deal of fine and dispersed granular phases and rod-like phases. The 3A21/7075 aluminum alloy cladding material could effectively solve the problems mentioned above and the in-depth analysis of microstructures of 3A21/7075 aluminum alloy cladding material was of great importance in terms of engineering value and academic significance.

The main factors affecting the displacement of micro-motion platform during the grinding process are spindle speed, cutting force, and piezoelectric ceramic input voltage model. This article, using the orthogonal test method, found a set of machining parameters which lead to less displacement deviation between practical test and theoretic analysis. First of all, single-factor experiments were carried out to study how spindle speed, cutting force, and piezoelectric ceramic input voltage model affect the experimental results, and then the orthogonal test was conducted. The experimental datum shows that voltage model was the most influential factor, followed by spindle speed and cutting force. The optimum combination of grinding parameters was obtained as spindle speed of 800 r/min, cutting force of 18 N, and voltage model radius of 12 µm. At this time, the average unit error of displacement of micro-motion platform was 9.13%.

Multi-phase metal oxides nanocomposites (NCs) have attracted considerable attention due to their extraordinary properties and novel applications over monometallic ones. Hence, trimetallic oxides na...

Aluminum coating was prepared on composite material surface by using oxygen-acetylene flame spraying technology. The H01-103H sealants were used to seal the thermal sprayed aluminum coatings. The c...

Resistance element welding (REW) with a concealed rivet cover (Q235) was used to join steel-DP780 and Al-5052. The macroscopic morphology and the microstructure were observed using optical microsco...

A simple wet-chemical synthesis method was developed to fabricate Zinc oxide micro-rod clusters. The synthesis process involved the rapid dilution of a zinc-bearing alkaline solution at 150°C in a convection oven on indium tin oxide (ITO) substrates. The synthesis was carried out by immersing an unseeded ITO substrate in a mixture of zinc nitrate hexahydrate (Zn(NO3)2·6H2O) and hexamethylenetetramine ((CH2)6N4) aqueous solution. The obtained sample was annealed at 400°C for 2 h. The structural, morphological and optical properties of the synthesized ZnO microstructures were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, respectively. The ZnO rod clusters are hexagonal phase of the wurtzite structure. The crystal grain sizes of the films were found to be 72.6, 84.3 and 66.3 nm for the (100), (002) and (101) crystal planes, respectively. The optical bandgap of the ZnO was determined to be 3.147 eV.

The effects of carbon black on the properties of rubber composites were studied in order to explore their value in producing low rolling resistance truck tires. Carbon black with different grades, N330 (coarser grade of 26–30 nm) and N220 (finer grade of 20–25 nm), was used as a reinforcing agent of natural rubber. The effects of different ratios of carbon black N330 at 40, 45, 50 and 55 parts per hundred rubber (phr) and N220 at 30, 35, 40 and 50 phr were investigated. Rubber composites with N220 had greater rubber/carbon black interaction than those with N330. The Mooney viscosity of rubber composite increased when the carbon black ratio increased. After vulcanisation of rubber, the samples were characterised by dynamic mechanical analysis, tensile strength and heat build-up. The results showed that the strength of rubber composites increased with increasing carbon black ratios. Interestingly, at the same bound rubber level, rubber composites with N220 presented lower dissipation energy, heat build-up and better mechanical properties than those with N330. This study indicated that reinforcement with an optimum amount of carbon black N220 would improve several desirable characteristics of rubber composites when used in low rolling resistance truck tires.

Helical structures are ubiquitous in natural and engineered systems across multiple length scales, while they often exhibit nearly uniform radius and pitch. Utilization of biomimetic structure desi...

In this article, nine groups of laminates were prepared according to the Taguchi L9(33) test array to study the influence of three process parameters, including molding pressure, molding temperature, and holding time on the performance of unidirectional carbon fiber/polyetheretherketone (CF/PEEK) laminates. A differential scanning calorimetry test was employed to select a reasonable process parameters range. The transverse tensile strength of the laminates was measured, and the fiber–matrix interfacial bonding behavior of the tested samples was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that the significance of factors to transverse tensile strength were molding temperature, holding time, and molding pressure in sequence. The optimal molding process parameters for CF/PEEK composite laminate were molding temperature of 400°C, molding pressure of 3 MPa, and holding time of 30 min. The optimization results were meaningful for the extension and application of thermoplastic composites.

Magnesium oxide-reinforced wood fiber composites (MgO/WF) are a new type of multifunctional material, which can be used in different occasions, such as shopping malls, hotels, and residential buildings. Referring to the relevant literature, there is no research on the milling performance of MgO/WF. In order to better understand the relevant knowledge of the processability of MgO/WF, three cutters with different helix angles were used in this experiment to carry out the cutting of MgO/WF, and the variation trend of its cutting force, tool wear, and surface roughness was measured. The results are as follows: First, under the same cutting parameters, the resultant force decreases with the increase of helix angle. Second, with the increase of helix angle, the tool wear was slightly improved. Third, the surface roughness (Ra) showed an increasing trend with the decrease of helix angle. In the end, when milling MgO/WF, better machined surface quality and less tool wear can be obtained by selecting the tool with larger helix angle.