Abstract
The screw press is a type of machine press used for extracting crude palm oil from the oil palm’s mesocarp, where its short driveshaft, a mechanical component for transmitting torque and rotation, is often found to be susceptible to failure. Since the initial damage to the short driveshafts in the shaft keyway area is associated with the frequent incidence of shaft failure, this research aimed to discover the root cause of this failure and how to prevent it using visual inspection and stress analysis methods as well as those of the fractography, metallography, chemical composition, and hardness tests. Using the descriptive method to analyse the collected data, the visual inspection and the fractography results of the research indicated that the fatigue crack failure of the short drive shaft in the palm oil screw press machine was caused by the fatigue crack initiation that was safe from stress concentration in its keyway areas. This crack initiation was followed by crack propagation as indicated in beach mark forms. Finally, the ductile fracture observed on the shaft surface was found to have resulted from the continuous rotational motion and the loading and unloading effect of the central shaft driving system.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.