Characterization of Short Nylon-6 Fiber/Acrylonitrile Butadiene Rubber Composite by Thermogravimetry

The thermal degradation of short nylon-6 fiber reinforced acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) composites with and without epoxy-based bonding agent has been studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). It was found that the onset of degradation shifted from 330.5 to 336.1°C in the presence of short nylon fiber, the optimum fiber loading being 20 phr. The maximum rate of degradation of the composites was lower than that of the unfilled rubber compound, and it decreased with increase in fiber concentration. The presence of epoxy resin-based bonding agent in the virgin elastomer and the composites improved the thermal stability. Results of kinetic studies showed that the degradation of NBR and the short nylon fiber reinforced composites followed first-order kinetics.

Multichannel Remote Data Acquisition and Analysing Systems For Fisheries / Environmental Investigations

Remote Data acquisition and analysing systems developed for fisheries and related environmental studies have been reported. It consists of three units. The first one namely multichannel remote data acquisition system is installed at the remote place powered by a rechargeable battery. It acquires and stores the 16 channel environmental data on a battery backed up RAM. The second unit called the Field data analyser is used for insitue display and analysis of the data stored in the backed up RAM. The third unit namely Laboratory data analyser is an IBM compatible PC based unit for detailed analysis and interpretation of the data after bringing the RAM unit to the laboratory. The data collected using the system has been analysed and presented in the form of a graph. The system timer operated at negligibly low current, switches on the power to the entire remote operated system at prefixed time interval of 2 hours.Data storage at remote site on low power battery backedupRAM and retrieval and analysis of data using PC are the special i ty of the system. The remote operated system takes about 7 seconds including the 5 second stabilization time to acquire and store data and is very ideal for remote operation on rechargeable bat tery. The system can store 16 channel data scanned at 2 hour interval for 10 days on 2K backed up RAM with memory expansion facility for 8K RAM.