Structural Responses of Aluminium Alloy and PMC Traverse Bars in a Vulcanization Equipment - A Comparative Study
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Abstract
Vulcanization is a process of joining the conveyor belt with high pressure and temperature. The machine consists of several components like stiffness bar, vertical supporting rod, heating plate, insulator, fasteners and particularly traverse bar which adds on to the weight of the machine. The machine consists of 5 to 10 traverse bar which is made aluminium 6061 alloy. In the present work, the weight of the vulcanization machine is reduced by reducing the weight of the traverse bar. This is achieved by choosing a less dense material. This research work mainly focused on reducing weight of the traverse bar by choosing polymer matrix composite material like epoxy carbon fiber and epoxy s-glass. A modelling and simulation work is conducted for aluminium alloy 6061 as well as composite material, deformation and stress are compared. I beam for epoxy carbon fiber deformation increased by 150 % and for epoxy s-glass increased by 366% comparing with traverse bar. In I beam with stiffener epoxy carbon fiber deformation is reduced by 38% for epoxy s-glass is increased by 6 %. Similarly, for equivalent stress composite materials for I beam is increased and for I beam with stiffener is decreased. The weight reduction from aluminium alloy to composite material is for epoxy carbon fiber is 81.70% and epoxy s-glass is 75.43%. In with stiffeners epoxy carbon fiber is 78.25% and epoxy s-glass is 70.81%.
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