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This paper reports on the investigation of thermal properties of Kapok, Coconut fibre and Sugarcane bagasse composite materials using molasses as a binder. The composite materials were moulded into 12 cylindrical samples using Kapok, Bagasse, Coconut fibre, Kapok and Bagasse in the ratios of (70:30; 50:50 and 30:70), Kapok and Coconut fibre in the ratios of (70:30; 50:50 and 30:70), as well as a combination of Kapok, Bagasse and Coconut fibre in ratios of (50:10:40; 50:40:10 and 50:30:20). The sample size is a 60mm diameter with 10mm -22mm thickness compressed at a constant load of 180N using a Budenberg compression machine. Thermal conductivity and diffusivity tests were carried out using thermocouples and the results were read out on a Digital Multimeter MY64 (Model: MBEB094816), while a Digital fluke K/J thermocouple meter PRD-011 (S/NO 6835050) was used to obtain the temperature measurement for diffusivity. It was observed that of all the twelve samples moulded, Bagasse, Kapok plus Bagasse (50:50), Kapok plus Coconut fibre (50:50) and Kapok plus Bagasse plus Coconut fibre (50:40:10) has the lowest thermal conductivity of 0.0074, 0.0106, 0.0132, and 0.0127 W/(m-K) respectively and the highest thermal resistivity. In this regard, Bagasse has the lowest thermal conductivity followed by Kapok plus Bagasse (50:50), Kapok plus Bagasse plus Coconut fibre (50:40:10) and Kapok plus Coconut fibre (50:50).

This study was carried out to assess the effect of strain paths and residual delta ferrite on failure characteristics of austenitic stainless steels cold rolled to 20% reduction. Optical metallography was carried out to determine grain size and quantify residual delta ferrite. Mechanical tensile tests to failure along three orthogonal directions were carried out on annealed and 20% cold rolled samples to study the effects of strain paths on mechanical properties of the material. Post-mortem scanning electron microscopy was used to study fracture surface and cross-sectional views of the failed specimens. The yield strength of material cold rolled to 20% reduction increased relative to annealed material along the rolling and transverse directions by twice as much along the normal direction. The increase in the yield strength occurred at the expense of ductility which decreased by about half in all directions. It also emerged that material loaded along rolling and transverse directions showed a gradual failure (from rupture strength), while that loaded along the normal direction exhibited a rapid failure. Correlation between ferrite morphologies on the three orthogonal planes and failure characteristics on fracture surfaces were established. The scanning electron microscopic micrographs suggest that materials loaded along transverse and rolling directions failed with characteristic features of pure ductile failure, while specimen loaded along normal direction showed mixed features of ductile and brittle failure.