The presented research focused on improving the mechanical properties of PLA-based composites reinforced with buckwheat husks (BH) particles. The research work was carried out in two stages. Firstly, the blend was prepared with the addition of polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) and thermoplastic starch (TPS), manufactured by injection molding technique, then the selected materials were prepared with the addition of BH filler, and the samples were prepared using the fused deposition modeling method (FDM). All samples were subjected to the assessment of material properties. Thermal and thermomechanical properties were evaluated using differential scanning calorimetry analysis (DSC) and dynamic thermal mechanical analysis (DMTA). Mechanical characteristic was evaluated using static tensile and flexural measurements and Charpy impact resistance tests. The research was supplemented with scanning electron microscopy analysis (SEM). It was found that the addition of PBAT and TPS greatly improves impact strength and elongation, especially with the addition of reactive compatibilizer. As expected, TPS, PBAT, and BH reduced the stiffness of the composites during DMTA testing. The presence of BH particles in the polymer matrix was observed to improve the crystallization behavior of PLA. The optimal content of BH filler in the composite was found to be 10%, which allowed to preserve good mechanical properties.
This article describes calibration method of automatic weighing instruments for measuring vehicles in motion. These measuring instruments in future will be widely used to determine the axle loads, if applicable the axle-group and vehicle mass of road vehicles when the vehicles are weighed in motion. For several years, some activities have been carried out on the weight control system that determines the mass of vehicles moving at higher speeds, called HS-WIM. The implementation of such systems will affect both the improvement of road safety and indirectly limit the number of road users moving by overloaded vehicles.
The main goal was to demonstrate the possibility of investigating martensitic transformation induced by plastic strain, especially including the kinetics of this transformation, using selected cross effects. It is commonly known that this type of transformation is a basic "mechanism" occurring in shape memory materials and metastable austenitic steels strengthened with martensite separations. The motivation behind the research was also to follow and visualise the transformation on line, during cyclic loading (fatigue process), without the necessity to use, for example, roentgenographic (destructive) or microscopic methods. The application of the magneto-mechanical effect (the Villari effect) and the thermomechanical effect (the Kelvin/Thomson effect) turned out to be particularly useful because they significantly change with martensite initiation and then accumulate in austenite. Therefore, the goal was to develop the non-destructive methods of investigating martensite transformation, which could then be used on real constructions made of metastable austenite steel. In the case of the magnetomechanical method, the goal was to additionally visualise the magnetic field transformations along a sample in the function of a loading cycle and the index of this period. To achieve this, high-resolution phase maps were used, which also allowed image processing methods known from machinery visioning (MV) or digital image correlation (DIC) techniques to be used.
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