Study of surface mechanical characteristics of abs/pc blends using nanoindentation

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polycarbonate (PC) are considered a well-known class of engineering thermoplastics due to their efficient use in automotive, 3D printing, and elec-tronics. However, improvement in toughness, processability, and thermal stability is achieved by mixing together ABS and PC. The present study focuses on the understanding of surface mechanical characterization of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polycarbonate (PC) blends using nano-indentation. Polymer blends sheets with three different proportions of ABS/PC (75:25, 50:50, and 25:75) were fabricated via melt-processing and thermal press. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was performed to analyze the intermolecular interactions between the blends’ compo-nents. To understand the surface mechanical properties of ABS and PC blends, a sufficient number of nano-indentation tests were performed at a constant loading rate to a maximum load of 100 mN. Creeping effects were observed at the end of loading and start of unloading section. Elastic modulus, indentation hardness, and creep values were measured as a function of penetration displacement in the quasi-continuous stiffness mode (QCSM) indentation. Load-displacement curves indicated an increase in the displacement with the increase in ABS contents while a decreasing trend was observed in the hardness and elastic modulus values as the ABS content was increased. We believe this study would provide an effective pathway for developing new polymer blends with enhanced mechanical performance.Aerospace Manufacturing Technologie

Kinetic modeling and optimization of parameters for biomass pyrolysis: A comparison of different lignocellulosic biomass

A primitive element for the development of sustainable pyrolysis processes is the study of thermal degradation kinetics of lignocellulosic waste materials for optimal energy conversion. The study presented here was conducted to predict and compare the optimal kinetic parameters for pyrolysis of various lignocellulosic biomass such as wood sawdust, bagasse, rice husk, etc., under both isothermal and non-isothermal conditions. The pyrolysis was simulated over the temperature range of 500–2400 K for isothermal process and for heating rate range of 25–165 K/s under non-isothermal conditions to assess the maximum pyrolysis rate of virgin biomass in both cases. Results revealed that by increasing the temperature, the pyrolysis rate was enhanced. However, after a certain higher temperature, the pyrolysis rate was diminished which could be due to the destruction of the active sites of char. Conversely, a decrease in the optimum pyrolysis rate was noted with increasing reaction order of the virgin biomass. Although each lignocellulosic material attained its maximum pyrolysis rate at the optimum conditions of 1071 K and 31 K/s for isothermal and non-isothermal conditions, respectively, but under these conditions, only wood sawdust exhibited complete thermal utilization and achieved final concentrations of 0.000154 and 0.001238 under non-isothermal and isothermal conditions, respectively.Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineerin