Cracked and un-cracked Brazilian disc specimens subjected to diametral compression were used for conducting fracture toughness and tensile strength experiments on a polymer concrete (PC) material. The value of mode I fracture toughness (KIc) was determined from the center- cracked Brazilian disc and the indirect tensile strength (σt) was obtained from the un-cracked Brazilian disc specimen. The...

Effects of coagulation temperature, coagulants, and wet-spinning methods on structure and properties of novel regenerated cellulose (RC) fibers prepared from cellulose in 7.5 wt % NaOH/11 wt % urea aqueous solution on pilot scale spinning machine by oneand two-stage coagulation were investigated by tensile testing, optical microscopy, scanning electron micrograph, and wide-angle X-ray diffracti...

during the past two decades the use of lignocellouse fibers in reinforcing composites has attracted much research activities. in the present work, date palm fiber was used for production of composites compatible withliving environment. the fibers were pre-treated chemically to remove impurities. in order to verify and compare the effectiveness of the pretreatment methods, lignin, ash, moisture ...

This paper investigates the force transmission modes, mainly described by probability density distributions, in non-cohesive dry and cohesive wet granular materials by discrete element modeling. The critical state force transmission patterns are focused on with the contact model effect being analyzed. By shearing relatively dense and loose dry specimens to the critical state in the conventional...

In this paper, a method with the potential to rapidly produce thermoplastic polymer composite bipolar plates with improved formability and hrough-plane conductivity is described. In our earlier work, it was reported that composite bipolar plates made with graphite filled wet-lay materials xhibited excellent mechanical properties and in-plane electrical conductivity. However, the through-plane c...

Natural fibers are receiving considerable attention as substitutes for synthetic fiber reinforcements such as glass in polymer due to their low density, low cost, acceptable specific strength, reduced tool wear and respiratory irritation and renewable resources. The fibers are not uniformly distributed in the randomly oriented fiber reinforced hybrid composites due to manual lay-up and fibers a...

This study investigates the effect of moisture conditioning on the Indirect Tensile Strength (ITS) of asphalt concrete. As a first step, cylindrical samples of 100 mm diameter and 50 mm thick were prepared using a Superpave gyratory compactor. Next, the samples were conditioned using Moisture Induced Susceptibility Test (MIST) device at different numbers of moisture conditioning cycles. In the ...

Tensile tests were performed on two different natural fibre composites (same constituent material, similar fibre fraction and thickness but different weave structure) to determine changes in mechanical properties caused by various aqueous chemical treatments and whether any permanent changes remain on drying. Scanning electronic microscopic examinations suggested that flax fibres and the flax/p...