This paper presents an investigation into the improvement of existing design and materials for pallets used in material handling applications. The objective was to develop a pallet design made from alternative materials such as composites of recycled corrugated paperboard and plywood for cold room lifting needs. Several new designs are proposed and analysed using the finite element method (FEM) and related information of weight, loading and safety conditions. Among these, five designs are recommended -one is made of plywood, two are made of corrugated paperboard, and two are made of specially constructed composite materials. The selection process aimed to ensure pallets were safe and stable and involved checking for maximum deflection while lifting and for catastrophe failure due to maximum stresses under Rankine's theory of failure. We conclude that plywood, corrugated paperboard and a composite of the two materials can be utilised successfully to manufacture stable and strong pallets. Using FEM analysis and simulation studies on Pro/Mechanica FEM software, we were able to suggest several optimum designs with one-third the weight and all of the functionality of traditional pallets.

Asphaltene deposition in crude oil reservoirs and transportation lines affects the oil recovery and incurs additional operational costs. The current study discusses the removal of asphaltene from inorganic silica surfaces using hydrodynamic forces. The deposition of asphaltene was carried out on clean glass slides (proxy material for silica) from heptane-asphaltene dispersions via aging. For the removal of asphaltene, a parallel plate channel is fabricated with a pocket to place aged substrates under varying shear rates. The apparatus enables studying the surface morphology changes on a glass slide due to controlled flow conditions through physical contact techniques like atomic force microscopy (AFM). AFM characterizes the extent of both deposition and removal of asphaltene from the surface. The results show that large aggregates of asphaltene are removed from the surface with an increase in flow rates. The extent of removal of asphaltene from the substrate as a function of shear rate is determined. The study also discusses the possible mechanism of asphaltene removal from the surface using the hydrodynamic force calculations. The colloidal interactions calculated from hydrodynamic forces are reported to be F adh/(d/2) = 1.29 mN/m. The presence of asphaltene tends to alter surface wettability. Interestingly, the contact angle measurements carried out on the asphaltene-deposited glass slides and after removal of asphaltene from the surface showed a negligible change, indicating incomplete removal of asphaltene from the surface.

This paper presents a study on the characterization of recycled industrial HDPE and PP and their blends with virgin resins. Thermal, mechanical and creep properties are investigated. A detailed investigation was conducted on creep behavior of HDPE and PP blends under different temperatures. The study showed that the temperature signifi cantly affected the creep behavior. High temperature resulted in high creep. Viscoelastic information can be extracted by fi tting creep versus time data to mathematical models using the spring-dashpot approach. Results predict that these blends can be used in pails for the packaging of nonfood grade materials such as paints, oil and grease.

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