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For the last decade, the lubricant industry has been trying to formulate biodegradable lubricants with technical characteristics superior to those based on petroleum. A renewable resource, mahua oil, is good alternative to mineral oil because of its environmentally friendly, non toxic and readily biodegradable nature. The triacylglycerol structure of mahua oil is amphiphilic in character that makes it an excellent candidate as lubricant and functional fluid. It is also very attractive for industrial applications that have potential for environmental contact through accidental leakage, dripping or generates large quantities of after-use waste materials requiring costly disposal. Vegetable oil in its natural form has limited use as industrial fluids due to poor thermo-oxidation stability, low temperature behavior and other tribochemical degrading processes.

Lead (Pb) bronze material is used for the manufacturing of bearings. Lead provides less friction and wear-related properties to bronze. During working of the bearings the lead contained micro-chips mixes with the lubricant oil and makes its disposal difficult. Rotational speed and applied load are the two main parameters on which the working and amount of wear from the bearing depend. So it is important to find out an optimum set of speed and pressure on which a particular bearing should operate to minimize the wear and hence minimize the lead-contaminated lubricating oil. In the present work, Taguchi technique has been used to find out the optimum values of speed and pressure. To measure the specific wear rate (SWR) and coefficient of friction (COF) of the leaded bronze material, it is made to slide on a mild steel material and amount of wear and coefficient of friction has been recorded using a pin on disc machine using ASTM-G99 standards.

Friction stir processing (FSP) is a method of changing the properties of metal through intense, localized plastic deformation. This deformation is produced by forcibly inserting a non-consumable tool into a workpiece, and revolving the tool in a stirring motion as it is pushed laterally through the workpiece. It comprises of a rotating tool with pin and shoulder which are inserted into a single piece of material and traversed along the desired path to cover the region of interest. Friction between the shoulder and work piece results in localized heating which raises the temperature of the material to the range where it is plastically deformed. During this process, severe plastic deformation occurs and due to thermal exposure of material, it results in a significant evolution in the local microstructure. Carbon nanotubes were dispersed into Al matrix by multipass FSP to fabricate Al6082 T0/Fe-MWCNT.

The functions of a piston ring are to seal off the combustion pressure, to distribute and control the oil, to transfer heat and to stabilize the piston. Most piston rings and metallic sealing rings for modern application where running conditions are severe, require some form of coating to minimise abrasion and corrosion. The piston ring coating improves the life of engine as well as fuel efficiency. In this study, physical vapour deposition (ion chrome plating) was investigated; plates with similar composition as the piston ring material were prepared by the casting process using induction arc furnace and sand mould. Wear test of the coating was conducted on pin on disc machine under dry conditions. The wear rate was calculated using mass loss methods on an electronic balance having least count of 1× 10−4 g.

The increment in the application of fossil fuels is leading the world into a catastrophic state both environmentally and economically. Current demand for fuels exceeds its imminent supply and rather sooner than later energy demands will have to shift towards non-conventional fuels to cope with the situation. With constant developments in the automotive sector, several solutions have been found but none have been as good as gasoline to substitute it in the commercial market. One such solution being compressed air might solve this global fuel crisis, which serves a glowing advantage of being cheaper and greener as it produces zero tail-pipe emissions, and can help in decreasing automobile’s contribution to global warming. Though the potential energy stored in the compressed air limits its application to light duty vehicles and still there will be a need for other alternative solutions for the heavy duty vehicles in order to relieve the pressure from the fossil fuels.

Exploring and enhancement of biodiesel production from feedstock like non-edible vegetable oil is one of the powerful method to resolve inadequate amount of conventional raw materials and their high prices. The main aim of this study is to optimize the biodiesel production process parameters of a biodiesel obtained from non-edible feedstocks, namely Neem (Azadirachta indica) oil and Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) oil, with response surface methodology using Doehlert’s experimental design. Based on the results, the optimum operating parameters for transesterification of the mixture A50S50 oil mixture at 51.045° C over a period of 45 minutes are as follows: methanol-to-oil ratio: 8.45, and catalyst concentration: 1.933 wt.%. These optimum operating parameters give the highest yield for the A50S50 biodiesel with a value of 95.24%.

As petroleum prices are rising continuously biodiesel production has been receiving worldwide awareness. Thus for its production the requirement for non-edible and unidentified feedstocks has risen. This research presents the production and process optimization of biodiesel obtained from non-edible feedstock namely cedar wood(Cedrus deodara) oil, with response surface methodology using statistical software minitab 18.0. Cedar Wood (Cedrus deodara) is a tree accessible in different parts of the world like India and Nepal. In Indian context, these are available in abundance especially in the forests of Himalayan region as a non-edible feedstock. Methyl ester of Cedar Wood Oil is prepared by process known as Transesterification. The FFA content of cedar wood oil was 0.5% which is below the 2% suggested for the application of the one step alkaline transesterification method.

This research is an attempt to investigate the significance of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) in the lean transformation of manufacturing units (largely automotive) and then apply the same in a tool room. It is an essential tool used to interpret both material and information flow in a system. The tool room under study specializes in production of a large variety of high precision tools for the automotive industry. A product family is chosen to map and analyze various stages of its production process, starting from the raw material (R/M) to the finished goods’ (F/G) stage. VSM is then implemented in the tool room to correctly identify wastes and thus improvement areas to bridge gaps between current and future states. Both current and future state maps are drafted along with usage of other lean tools to justify its implementation in a small setup like tool room.

The world today is facing severe oil crisis and environmental pollution, thus there is a great urgency of developing and applying bio based products as a substitute to mineral oil based products. Rapid industrialization and automation in the last decade has increased the demand of mineral oil based lubricant that will get exhausted in the years to come. Also in addition to the above fact, the biodegradability of mineral-oil based lubricants is around 25% maximum. About 50% of all lubricants sold worldwide end up in the Environment. Due to extensive use of mineral oil based lubricants, several environmental issues such as surface water and groundwater contamination, Air pollution, soil contamination, agricultural product and food contamination are emerging very rapidly. This has led the researchers to look for plant oil based bio- lubricant as an alternative to mineral oil based lubricant.

Due to high energy demand and limited availability of fossil fuels, the energy necessity becomes a point of apprehension as it results in hike of fuel prices. It is essential to develop renewable energy resources while considering the impact on environment. In the last decade, demand of alternative fuels has increased a lot. Therefore, researchers have already started working on the aim of developing a green fuel to overcome the future energy demand. And as we know that the biodiesel is generally prepared from the non-edible and renewable resources thus, it can be among the competitive alternative future fuels. Besides that, it does not require any prior engine modifications for its usual advantage among other alternative fuels while using it within certain boundaries. However, the process biodiesel production is in itself time consuming which increases the cost of production while decreasing the yield.

The economics of operating internal combustion engines in cars, buses and other automotive equipment is heavily affected by friction and wear losses caused by abrasive contaminants. As such, dust is a universal pollutant of lubricating oils. Road dust consists of depositions from vehicular and industrial exhausts, tire and brake wear, dust from paved roads or potholes, and from construction sites. Present research investigates the influence of dust powder of size 5 μm-100 μm as contaminant in SAE 20W-40 lubricant on the relative motion of a plane surface over the other having circular surface in contact. A pin-on-disk setup as per ASTM G99 has been used to conduct the experiments, firstly at increasing rpm keeping constant load of 118 N, and secondly by increasing loads, keeping rpm constant at 1000. The contaminated lubricant has been used to study its influence on friction and wear rate at the interface of pin of 12 mm diameter and disk at track diameter of 98 mm.