Date of Award

6-13-2017

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2017.

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

Panthea Sepehrband

Abstract

Ugandan social enterprise AEST makes and sells agricultural waste charcoal briquettes. The extrusion auger used wore down quickly, hampering production. The team worked to find a better material or heattreatment process to improve the auger's lifetime. The team built a custom pin-on-disk testing apparatus and used it along with optical microscopy to analyze the wear mechanism. The team then heat-treated and tested additional samples to find the best treatment. The team suggested improving AEST’s current case hardening process by increasing the case depth to 0.04 in (0.1016 cm) and using oil quenching.

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