The present work investigates the fabrication of Kevlar/epoxy and basalt/epoxy and Kevlar/basalt/epoxy hybrid composite laminates and compares their mechanical properties. Mechanical characterization tests, including tension, flexural, impact and hardness tests, as per ASTM standards, were conducted on coupons cut out from the fabricated composite panels. A hand layup fabrication technique was used to fabricate composite panels with seven layers in them. Eight such laminates, with two containing pure Kevlar/epoxy and basalt/epoxy and the remaining ones containing Kevlar/basalt, were stacked in different sequences and impregnated in an epoxy matrix to provide a hybrid configuration. The microscopic examination of the fabricated laminates revealed that there was good bonding between the reinforcements and matrix material. Out of the eight composite panels including the hybrids, the ones with the pure basalt/epoxy exhibited more tensile and flexural strength than its Kevlar/epoxy counterpart due to its higher density value. The tensile and flexural strength of the hybrid laminates (i.e., combinations of basalt/Kevlar/epoxy) showed values in between pure basalt/epoxy and Kevlar/epoxy laminates in general. A similar trend was observed in terms of hardness and impact strength for the fabricated composite laminates.

Use of lightweight composite materials in automobile applications such as doors, bonnets, and bumpers and also the utilization of composite materials in building insulations require superior mechanical and thermal properties. This study attempts to determine the thermal conductivity, linear thermal expansion coefficient, heat deflection temperature and thermo gravimetric analysis of hybrid composite containing reinforcement fibers stacked in seven different combinations in an epoxy matrix as per ASTM standards. Each composite contained two different fibre materials, i.e., Kevlar and basalt. The study revealed that the stacked layers of basalt fibers had more influence on the thermal properties. It was observed that the hybrid composite made of least quantity layers of Kevlar and most of basalt exhibited the maximum thermal conductance of 0.219 W mK⁻¹, while with vice versa laminate developed 0.191 W mK⁻¹ which was least thermal conductance. The composition prepared by made Kevlar as core layer and basalt as its outer layers exhibited coefficient of linear thermal expansion above 11.5 × 10⁻⁶/°C. Maximum decomposition weight loss of 76.92% occurred in the composition prepared by keeping basalt as core and Kevlar as outer layer. The differential thermal graph showed that the said hybrid composite exhibited the peak decomposition rate of 1wt.%/°C. The thermal properties of the laminate prepared by keeping two layers of Kevlar sandwiched between the basalt were excellent when compared to other six hybrid composites investigated in this study.

The world was in demand of wood products mainly for interior design, furniture making and household utilizes and at the same time agricultural residue usage was increased for making Engineering woods. Coconut is an abundant crop in Asia and coir fiber was extracted from coconut husk, as by-products. MDF was one of the by-products produced from coir reinforced with resin. In this work, the coconut coir was used to produce hybrid MDF with basalt fiber and phenol-formaldehyde resin hybridization. The panel was prepared with different coir and basalt fiber combinations by keeping a fixed resin percentage. The coir and basalt fiber percentage ranges from 40 to 75 % and 5–40 % respectively. SEM studied the morphological characteristic of the panel whereas thermal stability of the panel was evaluated through Thermo-gravimetric Analysis. The fire resistance was observed through a flammability test. The physical properties and mechanical properties were evaluated by ASTM Standards. From the investigations, the MoR and MoE have a higher value for Panel 3 with 29.14 N/mm² and 3143 N/mm² respectively and the internal bonding strength shows of 2.1 N/mm² maximum values of mechanical properties. The result shows for panel 3 has 15 % and 18 % more strength for MoE and MoR respectively and IB also shows 35 % of increased value.

Nickel‐based super composites are widely applied in the industry. These alloys withstand high thermal debility conditions and give better strength to machine parts in aviation, biomechanical, marine, and vehicle commerce. Nickel‐based alloys have high quality, corrosion resistance, and high heat refusal. Inconel 718 is one such composite extensively utilized in these loading circumstances because of chemical stability, mechanical friction, high thermal corrosion, and high stability. During the cutting procedure, these qualities will bring a lot of processing issues, for example, surface roughness, machining efficiency, and wear of tool. Plasma arc cutting (PAC) is an upsetting metal‐cutting process to perform slicing of hard to cut materials even for complex profiles. The present work analyzes the impact of PAC process factors, for instance, gas pressure (GP), arc current (AC), cutting speed (CS), and stand-off distance (SOD) on assessing the kerf width (KW), kerf taper (KT), and heat-affected zone (HAZ) of Inconel 718 superalloy. This work deliberates about the cutting parameters required for the machining of Inconel 718 to provide least surface roughness and low instrument wear. The experiments conducted to validate the ingenuity of the process are in accordance with the optimal parameter settings necessary for machining purposes. The divergence from actuality has been extremely minimal with a relative error of 4.45% for kerf width and 4.36% for the extent of heat-affected zone postmachining.

Exploring the machinability variables of nickel-based superalloys was difficult due to challenging machinability and a complex cutting environment. The present study emphasizes optimizing the parameters of plasma arc cutting (PAC) of Inconel 718 superalloy sheet. The PAC machining was done based on a viable DoE approach of Box–Behnken design. The statistical significance of the proposed experimental design approach was investigated through analysis of variance. The influences of PAC variables traverse speed (TS), torch height (TH), arc current (AC), and gas pressure (GP) on the response variables of micro hardness (MH), kerf deviation (KD) and surface roughness (R_a) were investigated through response surface plots. The optimal PAC parameters were obtained through a population-based metaheuristic algorithm, namely moth flame optimization (MFO). The optimal processing conditions of PAC based on MFO were found as 100 Amps of AC, 776.72 mm/min of TS, 6.18 bar of GP and 3 mm of TH, respectively. Further, the outcomes of the MFO algorithm are compared with benchmark algorithms, and their results indicated that the proposed MFO was feasible in the prediction and optimization of the PAC process.