Purpose
The decrease in availability of mineral oils and their environmental hazards created the need to search for alternate bio-based oils. The aim of this study is to investigate the friction and wear characteristics of kapok (Ceiba pentandra) oil as a bio-lubricant.
Design/methodology/approach
The wear and friction characteristics between steel-steel contact under lubrication were found using a pin-on-disk tribometer under different loads and sliding speeds, respectively. The corrosion and oxidation stability of the test lubricants were also analyzed. The worn surfaces of the specimen are analyzed with the help of an optical microscope. The obtained results were compared with palm oil and mineral oil (SAE20W 40).
Findings
From the investigation, it is found that the kapok oil possess a lower coefficient of friction and wear rate than palm and mineral oil. It is also found that the coefficient of friction varies proportionally and the wear rate varies inversely with the sliding speed as expected.
Originality/value
The present results confirm that the kapok oil can be used as an alternative lubricant to reduce the demand for mineral-based oil lubricants.
Vegetable oils are found as the feasible alternative for conventional minerals oils. There has been many environmental and health issues which are spotted with the use of conventional cutting fluids. There has been a great demand for developing new environmentally friendly vegetable based cutting fluids to reduce these harmful effects. In this present study, vegetable based kapok oil is used as a cutting fluid during milling to study its consequences over other conventional oils. The process parameters such as spindle speed, depth of cut and feed rate were optimized with respect to the flank wear (Vb) and surface roughness (Ra) respectively with the use of central composite design in response surface methodology (RSM). Further an attempt has been made to monitor the tool condition by measuring the cutting force, vibration and sound pressure simultaneously. Three different tool conditions such as dull, fresh and working were analyzed and their consequences were also reported. Also, the performance of the kapok oil is compared with the palm oil and mineral oil (SAE 20W 40). The feed rate has the major contribution for surface roughness and flank wear. It is found that the cutting force (F), sound pressure (p) and vibration (V) increases with the tool wear.
Wheel rims are vital components critical to the safety of an automobile. Conventional wheel rims have utilized monolithic materials like aluminium and magnesium alloys in replacement to heavier steel rims. To reduce the weight of the formula car, lightweight composite wheel rims with higher stiffness are explored in the current work. Composite wheel rims are still in their nascent stage for commercial automotive applications, although they are commonly seen more in motorsports. The factors like complex design, high cost, and difficulty in fabrication are some of the demerits of composite wheel rims. Formula Manipal racing has been building race cars for Formula India events for over 13 years, on which aluminium wheel rims were standardly fitted. In the current work, the design and finite element analysis of carbon fibre wheels rims were undertaken to replace the aluminium wheel rims after a thorough consideration of other potential materials also. The modelling was carried out on CATIA3DX®, and finite element analysis was carried out using the ANSYS COMPOSITE PREP/POST (ACP)® module for laminate stackup and structural analysis tools for mechanical response. From the studies, the carbon fibre rims reduced the weight significantly by 42% while improving the factor of safety by 41% as compared to the current aluminium wheel rims while thermally outperforming magnesium and titanium alloys.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.