Multi-response analysis in the material characterisation of electrospun poly (lactic acid)/halloysite nanotube composite fibres based on Taguchi design of experiments: fibre diameter, non-intercalation and nucleation effects

Poly (lactic acid) (PLA)/halloysite nanotube (HNT) composite fibres were prepared by using a simple and versatile electrospinning technique. The systematic approach via Taguchi design of experiments (DoE) was implemented to investigate factorial effects of applied voltage, feed rate of solution, collector distance and HNT concentration on the fibre diameter, HNT non-intercalation and nucleation effects. The HNT intercalation level, composite fibre morphology, their associated fibre diameter and thermal properties were evaluated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), imaging analysis and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), respectively. HNT non-intercalation phenomenon appears to be manifested as reflected by the minimal shift of XRD peaks for all electrospun PLA/HNT composite fibres. The smaller-fibre-diameter characteristic was found to be sequentially associated with the feed rate of solution, collector distance and applied voltage. The glass transition temperature (T g) and melting temperature (T m) are not highly affected by varying the material and electrospinning parameters. However, as the indicator of the nucleation effect, the crystallisation temperature (T c) of PLA/HNT composite fibres is predominantly impacted by HNT concentration and applied voltage. It is evident that HNT’s nucleating agent role is confirmed when embedded with HNTs to accelerate the cold crystallisation of composite fibres. Taguchi DoE method has been found to be an effective approach to statistically optimise critical parameters used in electrospinning in order to effectively tailor the resulting physical features and thermal properties of PLA/HNT composite fibres

Experimental analysis of the friction coefficient effect of the zinc‐lamella coated fasteners on bolt preload and tightening moment

Basic parameters of the bolt-nut joints, which are ones of the most important elements of assembly processes, are the torque, bolt preload and friction coefficients between bolt and nut interfaces. In bolted joints tightened with torque and angle-controlled method, friction coefficients of the fasteners are highly significant because they affect final torque and bolt preload values directly, creating a large uncertainty in regard to meet the minimum requirements on preloads considering the safety of joints and further systems, in case of this study, the vehicles being assembled. Also, the range of the lower and upper limits of friction coefficients of the coated fasteners affect process quality considerably in bolted joints tightened with torque and angle-controlled technique. In this study, the effect of the friction coefficients on the bolt preload and final torque values in the vehicle chassis joints, which are created using torque and angle-controlled tightening, were investigated experimentally. Therefore, bolt specimens which have both low and high friction coefficients, were tightened by the torque and angle-controlled tightening method especially using high angle torque parameters on the vehicle chassis test bench. The torque and preload values obtained have been compared to each other and correlated in terms of the friction coefficients occurred