The objective of this paper is to effectively use soybean straw biomass resources and decrease the negative effects of using synthetic resin. Soybean straw was ground through a wet process then hot-pressed to make biodegradable fiberboard (bio-board) without any binder. The effect of heating temperature on mechanical properties and dimensional stability performance of produced bio-board was investigated. Bonding quality and chemical changes of the bio-board were also evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The moisture content decreased from 12.5% to 3.4% with the increase of heating temperature. Meanwhile, most mechanical properties of bio-board improved. However, an excessive heating temperature, especially at 230 °C, did not significantly promote the improvement of most mechanical properties. However, the dimensional stability performance of the bio-board was greatly improved from 140 °C to 230 °C. Overall, the results showed that bio-board could be made by using soybean straw without any synthetic resin. Heating temperature plays a significant role in affecting the properties of bio-board. The refined bio-board is expected to be used as a packaging material, heat insulation in architecture, and mulch film for agricultural purposes.
The objective of this study is to clarify the differences of tractive performances generated by the sandy loam-grouser system and the clay soil-grouser system. The tractive performances of the grouser/track shoes are widely researched by previous researchers. However, it is essential to illustrate the influences of the soil properties on the tractive performances of the grouser shoe. Sandy loam and clay soil were used as the test soils for investigating soil parameters in this study. Moisture contents of soil were from 7.5% to 27%, dry basis. Parameters of sandy loam were obtained through direct shear tests, penetration tests, bulk density, and moisture content measurements in laboratory. The grouser shoe was made of steel. Based on the prediction result of tractive performances, the clay soil will always be performed better than the sandy loam no matter which dimension was chosen for single grouser shoe. Based on the experimental results, the grouser height of the track should be 5 cm in order to provide enough traction force, if a tracked vehicle is operated on the environment of either clay soil or sandy loam.
This study investigated the glueless preparation of biomass board using rape straw on a laboratory scale. The board-making process was broken down into four steps: soaking, refining, shape recovery, and hotpressing. To observe the effect of pressure during the hot-press stage on the strength of the bio-board, five panels were manufactured at various pressures. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) was used to explore how varying the pressure influenced the strength properties of the board. As pressure increased, the density of these five panels changed from 0.95 to 1.12 g/cm 3 . The mechanical tests showed that the bending rupture strength of these panels changed from 43 to 53 MPa, while the tensile rupture strength changed from 27 to 33 MPa. The bending strength of these biomass boards performed well enough to qualify them as Type-35 board, and their density classified them as hardboard, according to the Japanese industrial standards (JIS). This study showed that board-making was feasible using rape straw. The experimental results and the density functional theory results were consistent, in that the mechanical properties of the panels improved with increasing pressure. The DFT method was shown to be useful in exploring the factors that influenced the strength properties of the biomass board on the microscopic scale.
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