Search results for: hybrid aircraft
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 2103

Search results for: hybrid aircraft

453 Improving the Employee Transfer Experience within an Organization

Authors: Drew Fockler

Abstract:

This research examines how to improve an employee’s experience when transferring between departments within an organization. This research includes a historical review of a Canadian retail organization. Based on this historical review, gaps are identified between current and future visions to show where problems with existing training and development practices need to be resolved to reduce front-line employee turnover within an organization. The strategies within this paper support leaders through the LEAD: Listen, Explore, Act and Develop, Change Management Model. The LEAD Change Management Model supports the change process. This research proposes three possible solutions to improve an employee who is transferring between departments. The best solution to resolve the problem of improving an employee moving between departments experience is creating a Training Manager position within the retail store. A Training Manager position could support both employees and leadership with training and development of staff who are moving between departments. Within this research, an implementation plan using the TransX Model was created. The TransX Model is a hybrid of Leader-Member Exchange Theory and Transformational Leadership Theory to facilitate this organizational change within an organization by creating a common vision. Finally, this research provides the next steps as well as future considerations to enhance the training manager role within an organization.

Keywords: employee transfers, employee engagement, human resources, employee induction, TransX model, lead change management model

Procedia PDF Downloads 59
452 Strategy in Practice: Strategy Development, Strategic Error and Project Delivery

Authors: Nipun Agarwal, David Paul, Fareed Un Din

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Strategy development and implementation is the key to an organization’s success in today’s competitive marketplace. Many organizations develop excellent strategy but are unable to implement this strategy in order to succeed. The difference between strategic goals and its implementation is called strategic error. Strategic error occurs when an organization does not have structures in place to implement their strategy. Strategy implementation happens through projects and having a project management method that provides certainty and agility will help an organization become more competitive in implementing strategy. Numerous project management methods exist in theory and practice. However, projects mainly used the Waterfall method in the past that provides certainty in terms of budget, delivery date and resourcing. It is common practice now to utilise Agile based methods. However, Agile based methods do not provide specific deadlines and budgets. But provide agility in product design and project delivery, which is useful to companies. Both Waterfall and Agile methods in some forms are the opposites of each other. Executive management prefer agility in delivery projects as the competitive landscape changes frequently. However, they also appreciate certainty in the projects being able to quantify budgets, deadlines and resources that is harder for an Agile based method to provide. This paper attempts to develop a hybrid project management method that attempts to merge these Waterfall and Agile methods to provide the positives from both these approaches.

Keywords: strategy, project management, strategy implementation, agile

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451 Development of High-Performance Conductive Polybenzoxazine/Graphite-Copper Nanoomposite for Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Applications

Authors: Noureddine Ramdani

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In recent years, extensive attention has been given to the study of conductive nanocomposites due to their unique properties, which are dependent on their size and shape. The potential applications of these materials include electromagnetic interference shielding, energy storage, photovoltaics, and others. These outstanding properties have led to increased interest and research in this field. In this work, a conductive poly benzoxazine nanocomposite, PBZ/Gr-Cu, was synthesized through a compression molding technique to achieve a high-performance material suitable for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding applications. The microstructure of the nanocomposites was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The thermal stability, electrical conductivity, and EMI shielding properties of the nanocomposites were evaluated using thermogravimetric analysis, a four-point probe, and a VNA analyzer, respectively. The TGA results revealed that the thermal stability and electrical conductivity of the nanocomposites were significantly enhanced by the incorporation of Gr/Cu nanoparticles. The nanocomposites exhibited a low percolation threshold of about 3.5 wt.% and an increase in carrier concentration and mobility of the carriers with increasing hybrid nanofiller content, causing the composites to behave as n-type semiconductors. These nanocomposites also displayed a high dielectric constant and a high dissipation factor in the frequency range of 8-12 GHz, resulting in higher EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) of 25-44 dB. These characteristics make them promising candidates for lightweight EMI shielding materials in aerospace and radar evasion applications.

Keywords: polybenzoxazine matrix, conductive nanocomposites, electrical conductivity, EMI shielding

Procedia PDF Downloads 62
450 Outdoor Performances of Micro Scale Wind Turbine Stand Alone System

Authors: Ahmed. A. Hossam Eldin, Karim H. Youssef, Kareem M. AboRas

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Recent current rapid industrial development and energy shortage are essential problems, which face most of the developing countries. Moreover, increased prices of fossil fuel and advanced energy conversion technology lead to the need for renewable energy resources. A study, modelling and simulation of an outdoor micro scale stand alone wind turbine was carried out. For model validation an experimental study was applied. In this research the aim was to clarify effects of real outdoor operating conditions and the instantaneous fluctuations of both wind direction and wind speed on the actual produced power. The results were compared with manufacturer’s data. The experiments were carried out in Borg Al-Arab, Alexandria. This location is on the north Western Coast of Alexandria. The results showed a real max output power for outdoor micro scale wind turbine, which is different from manufacturer’s value. This is due to the fact that the direction of wind speed is not the same as that of the manufacturer’s data. The measured wind speed and direction by the portable metrological weather station anemometer varied with time. The blade tail response could not change the blade direction at the same instant of the wind direction variation. Therefore, designers and users of micro scale wind turbine stand alone system cannot rely on the maker’s name plate data to reach the required power.

Keywords: micro-turbine, wind turbine, inverters, renewable energy, hybrid system

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449 Multifunctional Polydopamine-Silver-Polydopamine Nanofilm With Applications in Digital Microfluidics and SERS

Authors: Yilei Xue, Yat-Hing Ham, Wenting Qiu, Wan Chan, Stefan Nagl

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Polydopamine (PDA) is a popular material in biological and medical applications due to its excellent biocompatibility, outstanding physicochemical properties, and facile fabrication. In this project, a new sandwich-structured PDA and silver (Ag) hybrid material named PDA-Ag-PDA was synthesized and characterized layer-by-layer, where silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) are wrapped in PDA coatings, using SEM, AFM, 3D surface metrology, and contact angle meter. The silver loading capacity is positively proportional to the roughness value of the initial PDA film. This designed film was subsequently integrated within a digital microfluidic (DMF) platform coupling with an oxygen sensor layer for on-chip antibacterial assay. The concentration of E. coli was quantified on DMF by real-time monitoring oxygen consumption during E. coli growth with the optical oxygen sensor layer. The PDA-Ag-PDA coating shows an 99.9% reduction in E. coli population under non-nutritive condition with 1-hour treatment and has a strong growth inhibition of E. coliin nutrient LB broth as well. Furthermore, PDA-Ag-PDA film maintaining a low cytotoxicity effect to human cells. After treating with PDA-Ag-PDA film for 24 hours, 82% HEK 293 and 86% HeLa cells were viable. The SERS enhancement factor of PDA-Ag-PDA is estimated to be 1.9 × 104 using Rhodamine 6G (R6G). Multifunctional PDA-Ag-PDA coating provides an alternative platform to conjugate biomolecules and perform biological applications on DMF, in particular, for the adhesive protein and cell study.

Keywords: polydopamine, silver nanoparticles, digital microfluidic, optical sensor, antimicrobial assay, SERS

Procedia PDF Downloads 79
448 Smart Energy Storage: W₁₈O₄₉ NW/Ti₃C₂Tₓ Composite-Enabled All Solid State Flexible Electrochromic Supercapacitors

Authors: Muhammad Hassan, Kemal Celebi

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Developing a highly efficient electrochromic energy storage device with sufficient color fluctuation and significant electrochemical performance is highly desirable for practical energy-saving applications. Here, to achieve a highly stable material with a large electrochemical storage capacity, a W₁₈O₄₉ NW/Ti₃C₂Tₓ composite has been fabricated and deposited on a pre-assembled Ag and W₁₈O₄₉ NW conductive network by Langmuir-Blodgett technique. The resulting hybrid electrode composed of 15 layers of W₁₈O₄₉ NW/Ti₃C₂Tₓ exhibits an areal capacitance of 125 mF/cm², with a fast and reversible switching response. An optical modulation of 98.2% can be maintained at a current density of 5 mAcm⁻². Using this electrode, we fabricated a bifunctional symmetric electrochromic supercapacitor device having an energy density of 10.26 μWh/cm² and a power density of 0.605 mW/cm², with high capacity retention and full columbic efficiency over 4000 charge-discharge cycles. Meanwhile, the device displays remarkable electrochromic characteristics, including fast switching time (5 s for coloring and 7 s for bleaching) and a significant coloration efficiency of 116 cm²/C with good optical modulation stability. In addition, the device exhibits remarkable mechanical flexibility and fast switching while being stable over 100 bending cycles, which is promising for real-world applications.

Keywords: MXene, nanowires, supercapacitor, ion diffusion, electrochromic, coloration efficiency

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447 Hybrid Wind Solar Gas Reliability Optimization Using Harmony Search under Performance and Budget Constraints

Authors: Meziane Rachid, Boufala Seddik, Hamzi Amar, Amara Mohamed

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Today’s energy industry seeks maximum benefit with maximum reliability. In order to achieve this goal, design engineers depend on reliability optimization techniques. This work uses a harmony search algorithm (HS) meta-heuristic optimization method to solve the problem of wind-Solar-Gas power systems design optimization. We consider the case where redundant electrical components are chosen to achieve a desirable level of reliability. The electrical power components of the system are characterized by their cost, capacity and reliability. The reliability is considered in this work as the ability to satisfy the consumer demand which is represented as a piecewise cumulative load curve. This definition of the reliability index is widely used for power systems. The proposed meta-heuristic seeks for the optimal design of series-parallel power systems in which a multiple choice of wind generators, transformers and lines are allowed from a list of product available in the market. Our approach has the advantage to allow electrical power components with different parameters to be allocated in electrical power systems. To allow fast reliability estimation, a universal moment generating function (UMGF) method is applied. A computer program has been developed to implement the UMGF and the HS algorithm. An illustrative example is presented.

Keywords: reliability optimization, harmony search optimization (HSA), universal generating function (UMGF)

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446 Performance Improvement in a Micro Compressor for Micro Gas Turbine Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Authors: Kamran Siddique, Hiroyuki Asada, Yoshifumi Ogami

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Micro gas turbine (MGT) nowadays has a wide variety of applications from drones to hybrid electric vehicles. As microfabrication technology getting better, the size of MGT is getting smaller. Overall performance of MGT is dependent on the individual components. Each component’s performance is dependent and interrelated with another component. Therefore, careful consideration needs to be given to each and every individual component of MGT. In this study, the focus is on improving the performance of the compressor in order to improve the overall performance of MGT. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is being performed using the software FLUENT to analyze the design of a micro compressor. Operating parameters like mass flow rate and RPM, and design parameters like inner blade angle (IBA), outer blade angle (OBA), blade thickness and number of blades are varied to study its effect on the performance of the compressor. Pressure ratio is used as a tool to measure the performance of the compressor. Higher the pressure ratio, better the design is. In the study, target mass flow rate is 0.2 g/s and RPM to be less than or equal to 900,000. So far, a pressure ratio of above 3 has been achieved at 0.2 g/s mass flow rate with 5 rotor blades, 0.36 mm blade thickness, 94.25 degrees OBA and 10.46 degrees IBA. The design in this study differs from a regular centrifugal compressor used in conventional gas turbines such that compressor is designed keeping in mind ease of manufacturability. So, this study proposes a compressor design which has a good pressure ratio, and at the same time, it is easy to manufacture using current microfabrication technologies.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics, FLUENT microfabrication, RPM

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445 Unmanned Aerial System Development for the Remote Reflectance Sensing Using Above-Water Radiometers

Authors: Sunghun Jung, Wonkook Kim

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Due to the difficulty of the utilization of satellite and an aircraft, conventional ocean color remote sensing has a disadvantage in that it is difficult to obtain images of desired places at desired times. These disadvantages make it difficult to capture the anomalies such as the occurrence of the red tide which requires immediate observation. It is also difficult to understand the phenomena such as the resuspension-precipitation process of suspended solids and the spread of low-salinity water originating in the coastal areas. For the remote sensing reflectance of seawater, above-water radiometers (AWR) have been used either by carrying portable AWRs on a ship or installing those at fixed observation points on the Ieodo ocean research station, Socheongcho base, and etc. In particular, however, it requires the high cost to measure the remote reflectance in various seawater environments at various times and it is even not possible to measure it at the desired frequency in the desired sea area at the desired time. Also, in case of the stationary observation, it is advantageous that observation data is continuously obtained, but there is the disadvantage that data of various sea areas cannot be obtained. It is possible to instantly capture various marine phenomena occurring on the coast using the unmanned aerial system (UAS) including vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) type unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) since it could move and hover at the one location and acquire data of the desired form at a high resolution. To remotely estimate seawater constituents, it is necessary to install an ultra-spectral sensor. Also, to calculate reflected light from the surface of the sea in consideration of the sun’s incident light, a total of three sensors need to be installed on the UAV. The remote sensing reflectance of seawater is the most basic optical property for remotely estimating color components in seawater and we could remotely estimate the chlorophyll concentration, the suspended solids concentration, and the dissolved organic amount. Estimating seawater physics from the remote sensing reflectance requires the algorithm development using the accumulation data of seawater reflectivity under various seawater and atmospheric conditions. The UAS with three AWRs is developed for the remote reflection sensing on the surface of the sea. Throughout the paper, we explain the details of each UAS component, system operation scenarios, and simulation and experiment results. The UAS consists of a UAV, a solar tracker, a transmitter, a ground control station (GCS), three AWRs, and two gimbals.

Keywords: above-water radiometers (AWR), ground control station (GCS), unmanned aerial system (UAS), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

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444 Micropollutant Carbamazepine: Its Occurrences, Toxicological Effects, and Possible Degradation Methods (Review)

Authors: Azad Khalid, Sifa Dogan

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Because of its persistence in conventional treatment plants and broad prevalence in water bodies, the pharmaceutical chemical carbamazepine (CBZ) has been suggested as an anthropogenic marker to evaluate water quality. This study provides a thorough examination of the origins and occurrences of CBZ in water bodies, as well as the drug's toxicological effects and laws. Given CBZ's well-documented negative consequences on the human body when used medicinally, cautious monitoring in water is advised. CBZ residues in drinking water may enter embryos and newborns via intrauterine exposure or breast-feeding, causing congenital abnormalities and/or neurodevelopmental issues over time. The insufficiency of solo solutions was shown after an in-depth technical study of traditional and sophisticated treatment technologies. Nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes are more successful at removing CBZ than traditional activated sludge and membrane bioreactor techniques. Recent research has shown that severe chemical cleaning, which is essential to prevent membrane fouling, may lower long-term removal efficiency. Furthermore, despite the efficacy of activated carbon adsorption and advanced oxidation processes, a few issues such as chemical cost and activated carbon renewal must be carefully examined. Individual technology constraints lead to the benefits of combined and hybrid systems, namely the heterogeneous advanced oxidation process.

Keywords: carbamazepine, occurrence, toxicity, conventical treatment, advanced oxidation process (AOPs)

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443 A Postcolonial View Analysis on the Structural Rationalism Influence in Indonesian Modern Architecture

Authors: Ryadi Adityavarman

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The study is an analysis by using the postcolonial theoretical lens on the search for a distinctive architectural identity by architect Maclaine Pont in Indonesia in the early twentieth century. Influenced by progressive architectural thinking and enlightened humanism at the time, Pont applied the fundamental principles of Structural Rationalism by using a creative combination of traditional Indonesian architectural typology and innovative structural application. The interpretive design strategy also celebrated creative use of local building materials with sensible tropical climate design response. Moreover, his holistic architectural scheme, including inclusion of local custom of building construction, represents the notion of Gesamkunstwerk. By using such hybrid strategy, Maclaine Pont intended to preserve the essential cultural identity and vernacular architecture of the indigenous. The study will chronologically investigate the evolution of Structural Rationalism architecture philosophy of Viollet-le-Duc to Hendrik Berlage’s influential design thinking in the Dutch modern architecture, and subsequently to the Maclaine Pont’s innovative design in Indonesia. Consequently, the morphology analysis on his exemplary design works of ITB campus (1923) and Pohsarang Church (1936) is to understand the evolutionary influence of Structural Rationalism theory. The postmodern analysis method is to highlight the validity of Pont’s idea in the contemporary Indonesian architecture within the culture of globalism era.

Keywords: Indonesian modern architecture, postcolonial, structural rationalism, critical regionalism

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442 A Novel Approach to 3D Thrust Vectoring CFD via Mesh Morphing

Authors: Umut Yıldız, Berkin Kurtuluş, Yunus Emre Muslubaş

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Thrust vectoring, especially in military aviation, is a concept that sees much use to improve maneuverability in already agile aircraft. As this concept is fairly new and cost intensive to design and test, computational methods are useful in easing the preliminary design process. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be utilized in many forms to simulate nozzle flow, and there exist various CFD studies in both 2D mechanical and 3D injection based thrust vectoring, and yet, 3D mechanical thrust vectoring analyses, at this point in time, are lacking variety. Additionally, the freely available test data is constrained to limited pitch angles and geometries. In this study, based on a test case provided by NASA, both steady and unsteady 3D CFD simulations are conducted to examine the aerodynamic performance of a mechanical thrust vectoring nozzle model and to validate the utilized numerical model. Steady analyses are performed to verify the flow characteristics of the nozzle at pitch angles of 0, 10 and 20 degrees, and the results are compared with experimental data. It is observed that the pressure data obtained on the inner surface of the nozzle at each specified pitch angle and under different flow conditions with pressure ratios of 1.5, 2 and 4, as well as at azimuthal angle of 0, 45, 90, 135, and 180 degrees exhibited a high level of agreement with the corresponding experimental results. To validate the CFD model, the insights from the steady analyses are utilized, followed by unsteady analyses covering a wide range of pitch angles from 0 to 20 degrees. Throughout the simulations, a mesh morphing method using a carefully calculated mathematical shape deformation model that simulates the vectored nozzle shape exactly at each point of its travel is employed to dynamically alter the divergent part of the nozzle over time within this pitch angle range. The mesh morphing based vectored nozzle shapes were compared with the drawings provided by NASA, ensuring a complete match was achieved. This computational approach allowed for the creation of a comprehensive database of results without the need to generate separate solution domains. The database contains results at every 0.01° increment of nozzle pitch angle. The unsteady analyses, generated using the morphing method, are found to be in excellent agreement with experimental data, further confirming the accuracy of the CFD model.

Keywords: thrust vectoring, computational fluid dynamics, 3d mesh morphing, mathematical shape deformation model

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441 Comparing Forecasting Performances of the Bass Diffusion Model and Time Series Methods for Sales of Electric Vehicles

Authors: Andreas Gohs, Reinhold Kosfeld

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This study should be of interest for practitioners who want to predict precisely the sales numbers of vehicles equipped with an innovative propulsion technology as well as for researchers interested in applied (regional) time series analysis. The study is based on the numbers of new registrations of pure electric and hybrid cars. Methods of time series analysis like ARIMA are compared with the Bass Diffusion-model concerning their forecasting performances for new registrations in Germany at the national and federal state levels. Especially it is investigated if the additional information content from regional data increases the forecasting accuracy for the national level by adding predictions for the federal states. Results of parameters of the Bass Diffusion Model estimated for Germany and its sixteen federal states are reported. While the focus of this research is on the German market, estimation results are also provided for selected European and other countries. Concerning Bass-parameters and forecasting performances, we get very different results for Germany's federal states and the member states of the European Union. This corresponds to differences across the EU-member states in the adoption process of this innovative technology. Concerning the German market, the adoption is rather proceeded in southern Germany and stays behind in Eastern Germany except for Berlin.

Keywords: bass diffusion model, electric vehicles, forecasting performance, market diffusion

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440 Historiography of Wood Construction in Portugal

Authors: João Gago dos Santos, Paulo Pereira Almeida

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The present study intends to deepen and understand the reasons that led to the decline and disappearance of wooden construction systems in Portugal, for that reason, its use in history must be analyzed. It is observed that this material was an integral part of the construction systems in Europe and Portugal for centuries, and it is possible to conclude that its decline happens with the appearance of hybrid construction and later with the emergence and development of reinforced concrete technology. It is also verified that wood as a constructive element, and for that reason, an element of development had great importance in national construction, with its peak being the Pombaline period, after the 1755 earthquake. In this period, the great scarcity of materials in the metropolis led to the import wood from Brazil for the reconstruction of Lisbon. This period is linked to an accentuated exploitation of forests, resulting in laws and royal decrees aimed at protecting them, guaranteeing the continued existence of profitable forests, crucial to the reconstruction effort. The following period, with the gradual loss of memory of the catastrophe, resulted in a construction that was weakened structurally as a response to a time of real estate speculation and great urban expansion. This was the moment that precluded the inexistence of the use of wood in construction. At the beginning of the 20th century and in the 30s and 40s, with the appearance and development of reinforced concrete, it became part of the great structures of the state, and it is considered a versatile material capable of resolving issues throughout the national territory. It is at this point that the wood falls into disuse and practically disappears from the new works produced.

Keywords: construction history, construction in portugal, construction systems, wood construction

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439 Parallel Pipelined Conjugate Gradient Algorithm on Heterogeneous Platforms

Authors: Sergey Kopysov, Nikita Nedozhogin, Leonid Tonkov

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The article presents a parallel iterative solver for large sparse linear systems which can be used on a heterogeneous platform. Traditionally, the problem of solving linear systems does not scale well on multi-CPU/multi-GPUs clusters. For example, most of the attempts to implement the classical conjugate gradient method were at best counted in the same amount of time as the problem was enlarged. The paper proposes the pipelined variant of the conjugate gradient method (PCG), a formulation that is potentially better suited for hybrid CPU/GPU computing since it requires only one synchronization point per one iteration instead of two for standard CG. The standard and pipelined CG methods need the vector entries generated by the current GPU and other GPUs for matrix-vector products. So the communication between GPUs becomes a major performance bottleneck on multi GPU cluster. The article presents an approach to minimize the communications between parallel parts of algorithms. Additionally, computation and communication can be overlapped to reduce the impact of data exchange. Using the pipelined version of the CG method with one synchronization point, the possibility of asynchronous calculations and communications, load balancing between the CPU and GPU for solving the large linear systems allows for scalability. The algorithm is implemented with the combined use of technologies: MPI, OpenMP, and CUDA. We show that almost optimum speed up on 8-CPU/2GPU may be reached (relatively to a one GPU execution). The parallelized solver achieves a speedup of up to 5.49 times on 16 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, as compared to one GPU.

Keywords: conjugate gradient, GPU, parallel programming, pipelined algorithm

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438 Impressions of HyFlex in an Engineering Technology Program in an Undergraduate Urban Commuter Institution

Authors: Zory Marantz

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Hybrid flexible (HyFlex) is a pedagogical methodology whereby an instructor delivers content in three modalities, i.e. live in-person (LIP), live online synchronous (LOS), and non-live online asynchronous (nLOaS). HyFlex is focused on providing the largest level of flexibility needed to achieve a cohesive environment across all modalities and incorporating four basic principles – learner’s choice, reusability, accessibility, and equivalency. Much literature has focused on the advantages of this methodology in providing students with the flexibility to choose their learning modality as best suits their schedules and learning styles. Initially geared toward graduate-level students, the concept has been applied to undergraduate studies, particularly during our national pedagogical response to the COVID19 pandemic. There is still little literature about the practicality and feasibility of HyFlex for hardware laboratory intensive engineering technology programs, particularly in dense, urban commuter institutions of higher learning. During a semester of engineering, a lab-based course was taught in the HyFlex modality, and students were asked to complete a survey about their experience. The data demonstrated that there is no single mode that is preferred by a majority of students and the usefulness of any modality is limited to how familiar the student and instructor are with the technology being applied. The technology is only as effective as our understanding and comfort with its functionality. For HyFlex to succeed in its implementation in an engineering technology environment within an urban commuter institution, faculty and students must be properly introduced to the technology being used.

Keywords: education, HyFlex, technology, urban, commuter, pedagogy

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437 Real-Time Pedestrian Detection Method Based on Improved YOLOv3

Authors: Jingting Luo, Yong Wang, Ying Wang

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Pedestrian detection in image or video data is a very important and challenging task in security surveillance. The difficulty of this task is to locate and detect pedestrians of different scales in complex scenes accurately. To solve these problems, a deep neural network (RT-YOLOv3) is proposed to realize real-time pedestrian detection at different scales in security monitoring. RT-YOLOv3 improves the traditional YOLOv3 algorithm. Firstly, the deep residual network is added to extract vehicle features. Then six convolutional neural networks with different scales are designed and fused with the corresponding scale feature maps in the residual network to form the final feature pyramid to perform pedestrian detection tasks. This method can better characterize pedestrians. In order to further improve the accuracy and generalization ability of the model, a hybrid pedestrian data set training method is used to extract pedestrian data from the VOC data set and train with the INRIA pedestrian data set. Experiments show that the proposed RT-YOLOv3 method achieves 93.57% accuracy of mAP (mean average precision) and 46.52f/s (number of frames per second). In terms of accuracy, RT-YOLOv3 performs better than Fast R-CNN, Faster R-CNN, YOLO, SSD, YOLOv2, and YOLOv3. This method reduces the missed detection rate and false detection rate, improves the positioning accuracy, and meets the requirements of real-time detection of pedestrian objects.

Keywords: pedestrian detection, feature detection, convolutional neural network, real-time detection, YOLOv3

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436 Impact of Integrated Signals for Doing Human Activity Recognition Using Deep Learning Models

Authors: Milagros Jaén-Vargas, Javier García Martínez, Karla Miriam Reyes Leiva, María Fernanda Trujillo-Guerrero, Francisco Fernandes, Sérgio Barroso Gonçalves, Miguel Tavares Silva, Daniel Simões Lopes, José Javier Serrano Olmedo

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Human Activity Recognition (HAR) is having a growing impact in creating new applications and is responsible for emerging new technologies. Also, the use of wearable sensors is an important key to exploring the human body's behavior when performing activities. Hence, the use of these dispositive is less invasive and the person is more comfortable. In this study, a database that includes three activities is used. The activities were acquired from inertial measurement unit sensors (IMU) and motion capture systems (MOCAP). The main objective is differentiating the performance from four Deep Learning (DL) models: Deep Neural Network (DNN), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) and hybrid model Convolutional Neural Network-Long Short-Term Memory (CNN-LSTM), when considering acceleration, velocity and position and evaluate if integrating the IMU acceleration to obtain velocity and position represent an increment in performance when it works as input to the DL models. Moreover, compared with the same type of data provided by the MOCAP system. Despite the acceleration data is cleaned when integrating, results show a minimal increase in accuracy for the integrated signals.

Keywords: HAR, IMU, MOCAP, acceleration, velocity, position, feature maps

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435 Factors Affecting Employee Decision Making in an AI Environment

Authors: Yogesh C. Sharma, A. Seetharaman

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The decision-making process in humans is a complicated system influenced by a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Human decisions have a ripple effect on subsequent decisions. In this study, the scope of human decision making is limited to employees. In an organisation, a person makes a variety of decisions from the time they are hired to the time they retire. The goal of this research is to identify various elements that influence decision-making. In addition, the environment in which a decision is made is a significant aspect of the decision-making process. Employees in today's workplace use artificial intelligence (AI) systems for automation and decision augmentation. The impact of AI systems on the decision-making process is examined in this study. This research is designed based on a systematic literature review. Based on gaps in the literature, limitations and the scope of future research have been identified. Based on these findings, a research framework has been designed to identify various factors affecting employee decision making. Employee decision making is influenced by technological advancement, data-driven culture, human trust, decision automation-augmentation, and workplace motivation. Hybrid human-AI systems require the development of new skill sets and organisational design. Employee psychological safety and supportive leadership influences overall job satisfaction.

Keywords: employee decision making, artificial intelligence (AI) environment, human trust, technology innovation, psychological safety

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434 Adaptive Strategies of Maize in Leaf Traits to N Deficiency

Authors: Panpan Fan, Bo Ming, Niels Anten, Jochem Evers, Yaoyao Li, Shaokun Li, Ruizhi xie

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Nitrogen (N) utilization for crop production under N deficiency conditions is subject to a trade-off between maintaining specific leaf N content (SLN), important for radiation-use efficiency (RUE), versus maintaining leaf area (LA) development, important for light capture. This paper aims to explore how maize deals with this trade-off through responses in SLN, LA and their underlying traits during the vegetative and reproductive growth stages. In a ten-year N fertilization trial in Jilin province, Northeast China, three N fertilizer levels have been maintained: N-deficiency (N0), low N supply (N1), and high N supply (N2). We analyzed data from years 8 and 10 of this experiment for two common hybrids. Under N deficiency, maize plants maintained LA and decreased SLN during vegetative stages, while both LA and SLN decreased comparably during reproductive stages. Canopy-average specific leaf area (SLA) decreased sharply during vegetative stages and slightly during reproductive stages, mainly because senesced leaves in the lower canopy had a higher SLA. In the vegetative stage, maize maintained leaf area at low N by maintaining leaf biomass (albeit hence having N content/mass) and slightly increasing SLA. These responses to N deficiency were stronger in maize hybrid XY335 than in ZD958. We conclude the main strategy of maize to cope with low N is to maintain plant growth, mainly by increasing SLA throughout the plant during early growth. N was too limiting for either strategy to be followed during later growth stages.

Keywords: leaf N content per unit leaf area, N deficiency, specific leaf area, maize strateg

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433 Full Characterization of Heterogeneous Antibody Samples under Denaturing and Native Conditions on a Hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer

Authors: Rowan Moore, Kai Scheffler, Eugen Damoc, Jennifer Sutton, Aaron Bailey, Stephane Houel, Simon Cubbon, Jonathan Josephs

Abstract:

Purpose: MS analysis of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) at the protein and peptide levels is critical during development and production of biopharmaceuticals. The compositions of current generation therapeutic proteins are often complex due to various modifications which may affect efficacy. Intact proteins analyzed by MS are detected in higher charge states that also provide more complexity in mass spectra. Protein analysis in native or native-like conditions with zero or minimal organic solvent and neutral or weakly acidic pH decreases charge state value resulting in mAb detection at higher m/z ranges with more spatial resolution. Methods: Three commercially available mAbs were used for all experiments. Intact proteins were desalted online using size exclusion chromatography (SEC) or reversed phase chromatography coupled on-line with a mass spectrometer. For streamlined use of the LC- MS platform we used a single SEC column and alternately selected specific mobile phases to perform separations in either denaturing or native-like conditions: buffer A (20 % ACN, 0.1 % FA) with Buffer B (100 mM ammonium acetate). For peptide analysis mAbs were proteolytically digested with and without prior reduction and alkylation. The mass spectrometer used for all experiments was a commercially available Thermo Scientific™ hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap™ mass spectrometer, equipped with the new BioPharma option which includes a new High Mass Range (HMR) mode that allows for improved high mass transmission and mass detection up to 8000 m/z. Results: We have analyzed the profiles of three mAbs under reducing and native conditions by direct infusion with offline desalting and with on-line desalting via size exclusion and reversed phase type columns. The presence of high salt under denaturing conditions was found to influence the observed charge state envelope and impact mass accuracy after spectral deconvolution. The significantly lower charge states observed under native conditions improves the spatial resolution of protein signals and has significant benefits for the analysis of antibody mixtures, e.g. lysine variants, degradants or sequence variants. This type of analysis requires the detection of masses beyond the standard mass range ranging up to 6000 m/z requiring the extended capabilities available in the new HMR mode. We have compared each antibody sample that was analyzed individually with mixtures in various relative concentrations. For this type of analysis, we observed that apparent native structures persist and ESI is benefited by the addition of low amounts of acetonitrile and formic acid in combination with the ammonium acetate-buffered mobile phase. For analyses on the peptide level we analyzed reduced/alkylated, and non-reduced proteolytic digests of the individual antibodies separated via reversed phase chromatography aiming to retrieve as much information as possible regarding sequence coverage, disulfide bridges, post-translational modifications such as various glycans, sequence variants, and their relative quantification. All data acquired were submitted to a single software package for analysis aiming to obtain a complete picture of the molecules analyzed. Here we demonstrate the capabilities of the mass spectrometer to fully characterize homogeneous and heterogeneous therapeutic proteins on one single platform. Conclusion: Full characterization of heterogeneous intact protein mixtures by improved mass separation on a quadrupole-Orbitrap™ mass spectrometer with extended capabilities has been demonstrated.

Keywords: disulfide bond analysis, intact analysis, native analysis, mass spectrometry, monoclonal antibodies, peptide mapping, post-translational modifications, sequence variants, size exclusion chromatography, therapeutic protein analysis, UHPLC

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432 Development of pm2.5 Forecasting System in Seoul, South Korea Using Chemical Transport Modeling and ConvLSTM-DNN

Authors: Ji-Seok Koo, Hee‑Yong Kwon, Hui-Young Yun, Kyung-Hui Wang, Youn-Seo Koo

Abstract:

This paper presents a forecasting system for PM2.5 levels in Seoul, South Korea, leveraging a combination of chemical transport modeling and ConvLSTM-DNN machine learning technology. Exposure to PM2.5 has known detrimental impacts on public health, making its prediction crucial for establishing preventive measures. Existing forecasting models, like the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) and Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF), are hindered by their reliance on uncertain input data, such as anthropogenic emissions and meteorological patterns, as well as certain intrinsic model limitations. The system we've developed specifically addresses these issues by integrating machine learning and using carefully selected input features that account for local and distant sources of PM2.5. In South Korea, the PM2.5 concentration is greatly influenced by both local emissions and long-range transport from China, and our model effectively captures these spatial and temporal dynamics. Our PM2.5 prediction system combines the strengths of advanced hybrid machine learning algorithms, convLSTM and DNN, to improve upon the limitations of the traditional CMAQ model. Data used in the system include forecasted information from CMAQ and WRF models, along with actual PM2.5 concentration and weather variable data from monitoring stations in China and South Korea. The system was implemented specifically for Seoul's PM2.5 forecasting.

Keywords: PM2.5 forecast, machine learning, convLSTM, DNN

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431 An Efficient Hybrid Feedstock Pretreatment Technique for the Release of Fermentable Sugar from Cassava Peels for Biofuel Production

Authors: Gabriel Sanjo Aruwajoye, E. B. Gueguim Kana

Abstract:

Agricultural residues present a low-cost feedstock for bioenergy production around the world. Cassava peels waste are rich in organic molecules that can be readily converted to value added products such as biomaterials and biofuels. However, due to the presence of high proportion of structural carbohydrates and lignin, the hydrolysis of this feedstock is imperative to achieve maximum substrate utilization and energy yield. This study model and optimises the release of Fermentable Sugar (FS) from cassava peels waste using the Response Surface Methodology. The investigated pretreatment input parameters consisted of soaking temperature (oC), soaking time (hours), autoclave duration (minutes), acid concentration (% v/v), substrate solid loading (% w/v) within the range of 30 to 70, 0 to 24, 5 to 20, 0 to 5 and 2 to 10 respectively. The Box-Behnken design was used to generate 46 experimental runs which were investigated for FS release. The obtained data were used to fit a quadratic model. A coefficient of determination of 0.87 and F value of 8.73 was obtained indicating the good fitness of the model. The predicted optimum pretreatment conditions were 69.62 oC soaking temperature, 2.57 hours soaking duration, 5 minutes autoclave duration, 3.68 % v/v HCl and 9.65 % w/v solid loading corresponding to FS yield of 91.83g/l (0.92 g/g cassava peels) thus 58% improvement on the non-optimised pretreatment. Our findings demonstrate an efficient pretreatment model for fermentable sugar release from cassava peels waste for various bioprocesses.

Keywords: feedstock pretreatment, cassava peels, fermentable sugar, response surface methodology

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430 Designing Supplier Partnership Success Factors in the Coal Mining Industry

Authors: Ahmad Afif, Teuku Yuri M. Zagloel

Abstract:

Sustainable supply chain management is a new pattern that has emerged recently in industry and companies. The procurement process is one of the key factors for efficiency in supply chain management practices. Partnership is one of the procurement strategies for strategic items. The success factors of the partnership must be determined to avoid things that endanger the financial and operational status of the company. The current supplier partnership research focuses on the selection of general criteria and sustainable supplier selection. Currently, there is still limited research on the success factors of supplier partnerships that focus on strategic items in the coal mining industry. Meanwhile, the procurement of coal mining has its own characteristics, and there are regulations related to the procurement of goods. Therefore, this research was conducted to determine the categories of goods that are included in the strategic items and to design the success factors of supplier partnerships. The main factors studied are general, financial, production, reputation, synergies, and sustainable. The research was conducted using the Kraljic method to determine the categories of goods that are included in the strategic items. To design a supplier partnership success factor using the Hybrid Multi Criteria Decision Making method. Integrated Fuzzy AHP-Fuzzy TOPSIS is used to determine the weight of the success factors of supplier partnerships and to rank suppliers on the factors used.

Keywords: supplier, partnership, strategic item, success factors, and coal mining industry

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429 Detection of Atrial Fibrillation Using Wearables via Attentional Two-Stream Heterogeneous Networks

Authors: Huawei Bai, Jianguo Yao, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract:

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common form of heart arrhythmia and is closely associated with mortality and morbidity in heart failure, stroke, and coronary artery disease. The development of single spot optical sensors enables widespread photoplethysmography (PPG) screening, especially for AF, since it represents a more convenient and noninvasive approach. To our knowledge, most existing studies based on public and unbalanced datasets can barely handle the multiple noises sources in the real world and, also, lack interpretability. In this paper, we construct a large- scale PPG dataset using measurements collected from PPG wrist- watch devices worn by volunteers and propose an attention-based two-stream heterogeneous neural network (TSHNN). The first stream is a hybrid neural network consisting of a three-layer one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) and two-layer attention- based bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) network to learn representations from temporally sampled signals. The second stream extracts latent representations from the PPG time-frequency spectrogram using a five-layer CNN. The outputs from both streams are fed into a fusion layer for the outcome. Visualization of the attention weights learned demonstrates the effectiveness of the attention mechanism against noise. The experimental results show that the TSHNN outperforms all the competitive baseline approaches and with 98.09% accuracy, achieves state-of-the-art performance.

Keywords: PPG wearables, atrial fibrillation, feature fusion, attention mechanism, hyber network

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428 Systems Approach on Thermal Analysis of an Automatic Transmission

Authors: Sinsze Koo, Benjin Luo, Matthew Henry

Abstract:

In order to increase the performance of an automatic transmission, the automatic transmission fluid is required to be warm up to an optimal operating temperature. In a conventional vehicle, cold starts result in friction loss occurring in the gear box and engine. The stop and go nature of city driving dramatically affect the warm-up of engine oil and automatic transmission fluid and delay the time frame needed to reach an optimal operating temperature. This temperature phenomenon impacts both engine and transmission performance but also increases fuel consumption and CO2 emission. The aim of this study is to develop know-how of the thermal behavior in order to identify thermal impacts and functional principles in automatic transmissions. Thermal behavior was studied using models and simulations, developed using GT-Suit, on a one-dimensional thermal and flow transport. A power train of a conventional vehicle was modeled in order to emphasis the thermal phenomena occurring in the various components and how they impact the automatic transmission performance. The simulation demonstrates the thermal model of a transmission fluid cooling system and its component parts in warm-up after a cold start. The result of these analyses will support the future designs of transmission systems and components in an attempt to obtain better fuel efficiency and transmission performance. Therefore, these thermal analyses could possibly identify ways that improve existing thermal management techniques with prioritization on fuel efficiency.

Keywords: thermal management, automatic transmission, hybrid, and systematic approach

Procedia PDF Downloads 356
427 Engineered Reactor Components for Durable Iron Flow Battery

Authors: Anna Ivanovskaya, Alexandra E. L. Overland, Swetha Chandrasekaran, Buddhinie S. Jayathilake

Abstract:

Iron-based redox flow batteries (IRFB) are promising for grid-scale storage because of their low-cost and environmental safety. Earth-abundant iron can enable affordable grid-storage to meet DOE’s target material cost <$20/kWh and levelized cost for storage $0.05/kWh. In conventional redox flow batteries, energy is stored in external electrolyte tanks and electrolytes are circulated through the cell units to achieve electrochemical energy conversions. However, IRFBs are hybrid battery systems where metallic iron deposition at the negative side of the battery controls the storage capacity. This adds complexity to the design of a porous structure of 3D-electrodes to achieve a desired high storage capacity. In addition, there is a need to control parasitic hydrogen evolution reaction which accompanies the metal deposition process, increases the pH, lowers the energy efficiency, and limits the durability. To achieve sustainable operation of IRFBs, electrolyte pH, which affects the solubility of reactants and the rate of parasitic reactions, needs to be dynamically readjusted. In the present study we explore the impact of complexing agents on maintaining solubility of the reactants and find the optimal electrolyte conditions and battery operating regime, which are specific for IRFBs with additives, and demonstrate the robust operation.

Keywords: flow battery, iron-based redox flow battery, IRFB, energy storage, electrochemistry

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426 Unsteady Three-Dimensional Adaptive Spatial-Temporal Multi-Scale Direct Simulation Monte Carlo Solver to Simulate Rarefied Gas Flows in Micro/Nano Devices

Authors: Mirvat Shamseddine, Issam Lakkis

Abstract:

We present an efficient, three-dimensional parallel multi-scale Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) algorithm for the simulation of unsteady rarefied gas flows in micro/nanosystems. The algorithm employs a novel spatiotemporal adaptivity scheme. The scheme performs a fully dynamic multi-level grid adaption based on the gradients of flow macro-parameters and an automatic temporal adaptation. The computational domain consists of a hierarchical octree-based Cartesian grid representation of the flow domain and a triangular mesh for the solid object surfaces. The hybrid mesh, combined with the spatiotemporal adaptivity scheme, allows for increased flexibility and efficient data management, rendering the framework suitable for efficient particle-tracing and dynamic grid refinement and coarsening. The parallel algorithm is optimized to run DSMC simulations of strongly unsteady, non-equilibrium flows over multiple cores. The presented method is validated by comparing with benchmark studies and then employed to improve the design of micro-scale hotwire thermal sensors in rarefied gas flows.

Keywords: DSMC, oct-tree hierarchical grid, ray tracing, spatial-temporal adaptivity scheme, unsteady rarefied gas flows

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425 A Neural Network Approach for an Automatic Detection and Localization of an Open Phase Circuit of a Five-Phase Induction Machine Used in a Drivetrain of an Electric Vehicle

Authors: Saad Chahba, Rabia Sehab, Ahmad Akrad, Cristina Morel

Abstract:

Nowadays, the electric machines used in urban electric vehicles are, in most cases, three-phase electric machines with or without a magnet in the rotor. Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) and Induction Machine (IM) are the main components of drive trains of electric and hybrid vehicles. These machines have very good performance in healthy operation mode, but they are not redundant to ensure safety in faulty operation mode. Faced with the continued growth in the demand for electric vehicles in the automotive market, improving the reliability of electric vehicles is necessary over the lifecycle of the electric vehicle. Multiphase electric machines respond well to this constraint because, on the one hand, they have better robustness in the event of a breakdown (opening of a phase, opening of an arm of the power stage, intern-turn short circuit) and, on the other hand, better power density. In this work, a diagnosis approach using a neural network for an open circuit fault or more of a five-phase induction machine is developed. Validation on the simulator of the vehicle drivetrain, at reduced power, is carried out, creating one and more open circuit stator phases showing the efficiency and the reliability of the new approach to detect and to locate on-line one or more open phases of a five-induction machine.

Keywords: electric vehicle drivetrain, multiphase drives, induction machine, control, open circuit (OC) fault diagnosis, artificial neural network

Procedia PDF Downloads 178
424 Increment of Panel Flutter Margin Using Adaptive Stiffeners

Authors: S. Raja, K. M. Parammasivam, V. Aghilesh

Abstract:

Fluid-structure interaction is a crucial consideration in the design of many engineering systems such as flight vehicles and bridges. Aircraft lifting surfaces and turbine blades can fail due to oscillations caused by fluid-structure interaction. Hence, it is focussed to study the fluid-structure interaction in the present research. First, the effect of free vibration over the panel is studied. It is well known that the deformation of a panel and flow induced forces affects one another. The selected panel has a span 300mm, chord 300mm and thickness 2 mm. The project is to study, the effect of cross-sectional area and the stiffener location is carried out for the same panel. The stiffener spacing is varied along both the chordwise and span-wise direction. Then for that optimal location the ideal stiffener length is identified. The effect of stiffener cross-section shapes (T, I, Hat, Z) over flutter velocity has been conducted. The flutter velocities of the selected panel with two rectangular stiffeners of cantilever configuration are estimated using MSC NASTRAN software package. As the flow passes over the panel, deformation takes place which further changes the flow structure over it. With increasing velocity, the deformation goes on increasing, but the stiffness of the system tries to dampen the excitation and maintain equilibrium. But beyond a critical velocity, the system damping suddenly becomes ineffective, so it loses its equilibrium. This estimated in NASTRAN using PK method. The first 10 modal frequencies of a simple panel and stiffened panel are estimated numerically and are validated with open literature. A grid independence study is also carried out and the modal frequency values remain the same for element lengths less than 20 mm. The current investigation concludes that the span-wise stiffener placement is more effective than the chord-wise placement. The maximum flutter velocity achieved for chord-wise placement is 204 m/s while for a span-wise arrangement it is augmented to 963 m/s for the stiffeners location of ¼ and ¾ of the chord from the panel edge (50% of chord from either side of the mid-chord line). The flutter velocity is directly proportional to the stiffener cross-sectional area. A significant increment in flutter velocity from 218m/s to 1024m/s is observed for the stiffener lengths varying from 50% to 60% of the span. The maximum flutter velocity above Mach 3 is achieved. It is also observed that for a stiffened panel, the full effect of stiffener can be achieved only when the stiffener end is clamped. Stiffeners with Z cross section incremented the flutter velocity from 142m/s (Panel with no stiffener) to 328 m/s, which is 2.3 times that of simple panel.

Keywords: stiffener placement, stiffener cross-sectional area, stiffener length, stiffener cross sectional area shape

Procedia PDF Downloads 278