Browsing by Author "Fadara, T. G."

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    Effect of heat treatment on mechanical properties and microstructure of NST 37-2 steel
    (Scientific Research, 2011) Fadare, D. A.; Fadara, T. G.; Akanbi, O. Y.
    Engineering materials, mostly steel, are heat treated under controlled sequence of heating and cooling to alter their physical and mechanical properties to meet desired engineering applications. In this study, the effect of heat treatment (annealing, normalising, hardening, and tempering) on the microstructure and some selected mechanical properties of NST 37-2 steel were studied. Sample of steel was purchased from local market and the spectrometry analysis was carried out. The steel samples were heat treated in an electric furnace at different temperature levels and holding times; and then cooled in different media. The mechanical properties (tensile yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, Young’s modulus, percentage reduction, percentage elongation, toughness and hardness) of the treated and untreated samples were determined using standard methods and the microstructure of the samples was examined using metallographic microscope equipped with camera. Results showed that the mechanical properties of NST 37-2 steel can be changed and improved by various heat treatments for a particular application. It was also found that the annealed samples with mainly ferrite structure gave the lowest tensile strength and hardness value and highest ductility and toughness value while hardened sample which comprise martensite gave the highest tensile strength and hardness value and lowest ductility and toughness value.
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    Trends of energy input in some Nigerian palm oil mills
    (2011) Fadare, D. A.; Oni, A. O.; Fadara, T. G.
    Energy audit was conducted using the energy accounting method in seven palm oil processing mills. The mills were stratified into small, medium and large categories based on the levels of mechanization and daily production capacity. The production process in three mill categories was divided into eight defined unit operations: bunch transportation, detachment and plucking, bunch sterilization, fruit digestion, pulp pressing, oil clarification, oil drying and oil packing. The energy (electricity, thermal and labour) consumption in each unit operation for processing 1,500 kg of fresh fruit bunch was evaluated. Results showed that the total energy intensity in the palm oil processing plants reduced with increase in levels of mechanization and daily production capacity from 344.98 MJ/tones in the small-scale plants to 252.43 MJ/tones in the large-scale plants. Percentage share of electrical energy in the total energy reduced from 96.73 to 95.06, while the thermal energy reduced from 3.27 to 1.84-%. The two identified energy intensive operations in palm oil processing are bunch transportation and fruit digestion, which accounted for over 90% of the total energy consumption in all the three mill categories. The use of fiber sludge as alternate source of energy for the boiler was recommended to reduce the cost of energy.