Effect of Wood Flour Content and Cooling Rate on Properties of Rubberwood Flour/Recycled Polypropylene Composites

The present article summarizes an experimental study on the mechanical and thermal behavior of recycled polypropylene composites reinforced with rubberwood flour. Different compositions were varied to investigate mechanical strengths, melting temperature, storage modulus, and loss modulus. It was observed that the tensile and flexural strengths decreased with the increase of wood flour content. Furthermore, the air cooled composites showed improved properties in comparison with the water cooled composites. The melting and crystallization temperature results presented a weak influence of increased wood flour content on composites. However, dynamic mechanical thermal analysis showed an increase in the storage and loss modulus

Stress distributions in rubber butt-joints bonding

The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of shear modulus of thin adhesive layer on stress distributions and deformations in rubber butt-joints with Finite Element Method (FEM) and shape factor. The research methods comprise of three important tasks. First, the material properties of adhesive layer and rubber are figured out in order to use in 3-D FEM models of the rubber butt joint. Second, the FEM models are verified with experiments in order to evaluate the accuracy. Third, the effect of shear modulus of thin adhesive layer is studied from FEM models. The finding of this research indicates that the shear modulus of thin adhesive layer and shape factor of the rubber joint increases the resistance of lateral deformation and hydrostatic pressure in rubber butt-joints