The 10 most-cited articles in Applied Mechanics and Materials, 2023

A composite is a solid material created by combining two or more different substances, each with its own set of qualities, to create a new substance with properties that outperform the original components for a specific use. Currently composite materials are widely applied across various fields due to its superior properties. The fibre reinforced composites being light in weight, and high strength are replacing metals in many applications. Nowadays, more focus is paid in developing sustainable and environment friendly materials without compromise in the quality. This reason led to the development of Natural Fibre Reinforced Composite (NFRC) materials, which is gaining more attention towards them. Though many NFRCs were developed, machining is a very big challenge. Compared to the traditional machining processes, the non-traditional machining process is proved to be recommendable for machining NFRC materials. In this article, the numerous research endeavors carried out in machining of NFRCs using Abrasive Water Jet Machining (AWJM) process is reviewed. This article describes the…

In recent years, the emphasis has shifted toward more precious minerals and composite structures to produce thinner, cheaper, more suitable materials for specific applications. The primary purpose of this study would be to determine how any walnut fillers perform in a vulgare biocomposite. The nanocomposite was created employing the most economical manual lay-up method. To accomplish the legitimate goal, the following descriptions have been levied: At different levels, (i) volume ratios of luffa thread, (ii) weight ratios of walnut powder, as well as (iii) freezing processing durations, all are accessible. The multilayer aggregates are in a freezing room set to 77 degrees Celsius. Tension and elastic modulus were tested mechanically. The morphological properties of powdered particles were detected using a scanning electron microscope. The mechanical integrity of 10% walnut shell powder, 40% luffa fabric, as well as 15-minute freezing treatments, surpasses 5 and 15% walnut shell granules.

Nowadays Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a very promising device to monitor environmental events, which are used in many application areas such as agriculture, environmental monitoring, air-water pollution, greenhouse, health monitoring, structural monitoring etc. Also, WSN needs effective and efficient way of collecting data from the area over which it is deployed, since the network consists of battery-operated nodes with limited energy. Improving the lifetime of WSN for continuous monitoring applications are very essential because of simple deployment, low installation cost, lack of cabling, and high mobility. The better energy conservation and reliable data transmission would be achieved in WSN by adopting efficient routing protocols for better and reliable communication. Also, security in data transmission in WSN is still a challenging task. Hence, a better way of encryption has to be computed to promote a reliable transmission between the nodes. In this paper discusses about different routing protocols which support energy efficiency and security techniques in WSN.

3D printing is an emerging technology that creates parts straight from CAD models. Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) is a 3D printing method that is becoming increasingly popular in the aerospace, medical, and orthopedics sectors. These are usually focused on precise, long-lasting, and lightweight parts. DMLS is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique that employs a laser to sinter a selected area of a metallic powder layer by layer to produce the required metal components. The heating power of the laser was discovered to have a strong effect on phase formation. The major issue with this process is that high residual and large deformations are introduced to the components during manufacturing. This causes a change in the fatigue strength of a part and can even lead to cracks. The quality of the DMLS parts is affected by various process parameters. In this study, the design of experiments is used to investigate the consequences of process parameters used in the DMLS process to make metal parts. Process parameters such as laser power and scanning speed must be identified because…

Dolomite is widely used in the construction, glass ceramics, iron and steel, pharmaceutical industries, as a source of CaO and MgO and as thermal energy storage material. Thermal decomposition analysis of natural dolomite of the so-called Jeddih limestone has been carried out. A thermogravimetry analysis (TGA) in the air evaluates the thermal decomposition of dolomite. The natural dolomite has been analyzed by x-ray flourescence (XRF) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) to test crystal structure and decomposition phase, fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) was utilized to identify the presence of functional groups. The particle morphology was observed by scanning electron microscopy. TGA curve shows that the thermal decomposition of dolomite occurs in two stages. The first stage is in temperature range of 600 - 779°C and the second one is at the temperature 779°C. The results are in line with the XRD and FTIR measurements. Which shows that calcite begins to grow at a temperature of 600°C and MgO phase is observed at 700 - 900°C. Moreover, CaO phase starts to be found at 800°C.

Elderly people need special attention and some of them need to be monitored continuously and in real-time. Fall detection is one of the systems used to monitor the daily life of the elderly. Various devices and methods were developed to monitor the condition of the elderly on daily activity. The system that has been proposed in previous studies uses a number of sensors that are placed on the body. However, this system tends to be high cost, complex installation, and inconvenient to use. Therefore, an alternative system is needed to overcome this problem. The purpose of this study is to developed a fall detection method using PoseNet with pose calculations based on key joins. Testing on larger data sets is needed to verify the proposed method's performance further. The use of cameras can be a solution to monitoring the activities of the elderly. With the image processing method, it is possible to estimate the activities of the elderly. The purpose of this study is to developed a fall detection method using PoseNet with pose calculations based on key joins. This study developed a fall…

One of the environmental factors that can influence the onset of fatigue is noise exposure. Besides noise has a negative impact on everything from cognitive processes to mental and physical health. Noise's impact can be measured using brain activity and the waves it generates. The main goal of this article is to review how electroencephalography can be used to determine the impact of noise on cognitive performance. The method is based on bibliometric analysis stages, including literature study from the Scopus database and the snowball search method. The findings revealed that of the 30 articles examined, 28 used the experimental design method with continuous noise, and 10 used the time-frequency domain for feature extraction. According to the results of the study, there seems to be an increase in the use of EEG for performance measurement, such as mental fatigue, mental workload, working memory, attention, stress, and the presence of noise factors that influence cognitive performance.

The prototype of the compressed air foam system was improved based on the evaluation of the numerical parameters obtained with the help of the developed mathematical model of the foam generation process and the pneumatic-hydraulic scheme. The prototype provides the possibility of foam generation both in autonomous mode, due to the installation of cylinders with compressed gas, and in stationary mode, due to the supply of compressed air from an external source. This allows the use of an improved model of the compressed air foam system both in stationary mode (dry pipes, gas stations, etc.) and for use on heavy and light fire trucks, which is important for large cities. Testing of the improved prototype of the system for extinguishing model fires was carried out. The system provides extinguishing of model fires of class 183 B and 144 B when using both a general-purpose foaming agent and a special film-forming foaming agent. When using a film-forming foaming agent, the extinguishing time was reduced by 1.75 times, the consumption of fire extinguishing solution by 1.47 times. But at the…

The use of natural fibers in composite is increasing day by due to eco-friendly nature of the fibres and reuse of waste. Natural fibers can be classified according to their source of origin such as plant fiber, mineral fiber, and animal fiber. In the present article, epoxy was taken as the matrix and wool fiber for reinforcement with flax flax fiber for fabricating the composite using the hand layup technique. The impact of the hybridization of flax and wool fibers on the mechanical properties of natural fiber reinforced polymer composite was investigated. These fibers were blended in varying percentages with fixed fiber content of 5% [(100% flax fiber), (40% wool/60% flax fiber), (50% flax/50% wool fiber), (60% wool fiber/40% flax), (100% wool fiber)] with epoxy resin and sampled as F5, WF23, WF2.5, WF32, and W5 respectively. Tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength were investigated through experimentation. All hybrid composites outperformed non-hybrid wool fiber composites in terms of mechanical properties. The wool fiber is poor in mechanical strength which was…

Fish feed is the crucial aspect of aquaculture activities, 70% of production costs are spent on feed availability. However, the high price of commercial feed causes a decrease in farmers' profits, so a solution is needed to reduce feed costs. Food waste has a good potential to be used as a fish feed material. The fermentation of food waste should improve its quality and ensure that food waste is safe to use as feed material. As a result of various tests of Proximate, FTIR, SEM, and Physical Quality test it has been shown that the fermentation process can significantly improve the nutritional quality of food waste without changing the functional groups and the reduction of the particle size after the fermentation process is also capable to improve the physical quality of feed. We conclude that the fermentation process is the best method of improving the physical and chemical quality of food waste and the addition of fermented food waste meal to feed did not negatively affect the physical quality of feed produced.