Design and Development of Foot Operated Areca-Nut Leaf Plate Manufacturing Machine

This paper describes the techniques for design and development of areca-nut leaf plate making machine which uses manual power (foot operated) as the main power source. The primary purpose of this research is the utilization of generally wasted areca-nut leaf sheath for the production of bio-degradable areca-nut leaf plates by the development of machine, which can be operated easily at home. This machine mainly uses mild steel for the development of the parts such as lower and upper die, frame, pedal, connecting links and shafts. The force applied at the pedal is transferred to moving upper die, which then presses the areca-nut leaf sheath placed above the fixed lower die, resulting areca-nut leaf sheath plates within 15 seconds of pressing. Keywords: Areca-nut leaf, Bio degradable, Foot operated

Effect of kerosene combustion atmosphere on the mild steel oxide layer

In arson cases, accelerants were usually used by criminals to achieve the purpose of rapid arson. Therefore, fire investigators aim to determine whether accelerants was used in the fire scene. Metallic material has to react with corrosive gas around it at high temperature and the oxidation products may store the information of reactants. Accelerants present in fire scenes impart some oxidative characteristics on metallic materials. The aim of this work is to figure out the possibility to identify the presence of accelerant in a fire according to the oxidation patterns of metallic material. This paper researched the oxidation behavior of mild steel at high temperature in a simulated flame environment. The surface morphological and cross-sectional microstructural features of the samples were characterized by X-ray diffractions, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy analysis after oxidation. The carbon in the combustion atmosphere had a carburizing effect on the metal oxide layer. It was mostly C–C, C–O and C=O of organic matter could be used as in fire investigation. Various oxidizing atmosphere composite systems promote the formation of metal oxide layers. And bidirectional oxidation mode in the oxide layer further accelerates the oxidation rate. The (wustite) FeO phase was not found in the oxide layer because of the strong oxidation of the combustion atmosphere. These results offer complementary information in fire characteristics, which combining the characterization of surface scale with traditional chemical analysis of recovering ignitable liquid residues from fire debris are expected to offer crucial information for determining the presence of combustion accelerants at a fire scene.