Epoxidized natural rubber/Ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer (ENR-50/EVA) blends with different ratios were prepared by using a Haake internal mixer. The effect of the blend ratio on the processing, tensile properties (such as tensile strength, elongation at break, Young's modulus and stress-strain behavior), morphology, dynamic mechanical properties, and thermal properties has been investigated. The tensile properties increase with the increase of EVA content, whereas the stabilization torque increases with the increase of ENR-50 content in the blend. In 40:60 and 50:50 blend of ENR-50/EVA, both the phases exist as continuous phases, producing a co-continuous morphology. At these blend ratio, the drastic change in properties were noted, indicating that the phase inversion occurs. The results on dynamic mechanical properties revealed that the blends are compatible. Blending of ENR-50 and EVA lead to the improvement in thermal stability and 50:50 blend ratios is the most stable blend.
Rice husk, which is usually regarded as an agricultural waste, when burnt produces a silica rich ash known as white rice husk ash (WRHA). This low cost and environmental friendly ller derived from a renewable source has been incorporated into an elastomer rich ethylene/propylene/diene terpolymer (EPDM)-polypropylene (PP) matrix to prepare thermoplastic elastomer composites, by melt mixing in a Brabender plasticorder. Elastomer components of the composites were dynamically cured in the presence of WRHA. Mechanical properties and recyclability of these composites were investigated with reference to the dynamic curing and curing agent concentration. The processability of the composites was also investigated using Brabender torque as the indicator. It was observed that WRHA does not interrupt the dynamic curing process and mechanical properties are substantially enhanced with increased curing agent concentration up to an optimum concentration. It was found that composites cured at low curing agent concentration are recyclable. An increase in the concentration of curing agent increases the Brabender stabilisation torque indicating an increase in crosslink density (decrease in processability). Corresponding composites lled with a commercial grade of silica were also prepared and their mechanical properties and recyclability were compared with WRHA lled composites. Results showed that WRHA lled composites exhibit properties comparable to the silica lled grades, indicating the potential of WRHA as an alternative ller for thermoplastic elastomer composites. Possibly, large scale use of WRHA could help alleviate the environmental issue of disposal of the waste rice husks.
Ontology is generally defined as an explicit specification of conceptualization which involves the exploration of concepts and its relationships in the domain of interest. Ontology is used to share knowledge across semantic web services, agents and information systems. Therefore the ontology engineer should follow a methodology during the ontology construction to ensure its reliability. This paper presents ontology building methodologies such as Uschold and king [3], Viral Hepatitis Ontology design Methodology [4] and Amaya Berneras et al [9].Moreover the paper presents Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis ontologies which belong to the medical domain and a proposal for a new methodology applied to build the two medical ontologies. What distinguishes the proposed methodology is the execution of knowledge representation which involves the use of conceptualization and inference rules.
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