Search results for: Rolling speed ratio
324 Phenolic Compounds and Antimicrobial Properties of Pomegranate (Punica granatum) Peel Extracts
Authors: P. Rahnemoon, M. Sarabi Jamab, M. Javanmard Dakheli, A. Bostan
Abstract:
In recent years, tendency to use of natural antimicrobial agents in food industry has increased. Pomegranate peels containing phenolic compounds and anti-microbial agents, are counted as valuable source for extraction of these compounds. In this study, the extraction of pomegranate peel extract was carried out at different ethanol/water ratios (40:60, 60:40, and 80:20), temperatures (25, 40, and 55 ˚C), and time durations (20, 24, and 28 h). The extraction yield, phenolic compounds, flavonoids, and anthocyanins were measured. Antimicrobial activity of pomegranate peel extracts were determined against some food-borne microorganisms such as Salmonella enteritidis, Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Aspergillus niger, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae by agar diffusion and MIC methods. Results showed that at ethanol/water ratio 60:40, 25 ˚C and 24 h maximum amount of phenolic compounds (349.518 mg gallic acid/g dried extract), flavonoids (250.124 mg rutin/g dried extract), anthocyanins (252.047 mg cyanidin3glucoside/100 g dried extract), and the strongest antimicrobial activity were obtained. All extracts’ antimicrobial activities were demonstrated against every tested microorganisms. Staphylococcus aureus showed the highest sensitivity among the tested microorganisms.
Keywords: Antimicrobial agents, phenolic compounds, pomegranate peel, solvent extraction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1939323 Minimization of Non-Productive Time during 2.5D Milling
Authors: Satish Kumar, Arun Kumar Gupta, Pankaj Chandna
Abstract:
In the modern manufacturing systems, the use of thermal cutting techniques using oxyfuel, plasma and laser have become indispensable for the shape forming of high quality complex components; however, the conventional chip removal production techniques still have its widespread space in the manufacturing industry. Both these types of machining operations require the positioning of end effector tool at the edge where the cutting process commences. This repositioning of the cutting tool in every machining operation is repeated several times and is termed as non-productive time or airtime motion. Minimization of this non-productive machining time plays an important role in mass production with high speed machining. As, the tool moves from one region to the other by rapid movement and visits a meticulous region once in the whole operation, hence the non-productive time can be minimized by synchronizing the tool movements. In this work, this problem is being formulated as a general travelling salesman problem (TSP) and a genetic algorithm approach has been applied to solve the same. For improving the efficiency of the algorithm, the GA has been hybridized with a noble special heuristic and simulating annealing (SA). In the present work a novel heuristic in the combination of GA has been developed for synchronization of toolpath movements during repositioning of the tool. A comparative analysis of new Meta heuristic techniques with simple genetic algorithm has been performed. The proposed metaheuristic approach shows better performance than simple genetic algorithm for minimization of nonproductive toolpath length. Also, the results obtained with the help of hybrid simulated annealing genetic algorithm (HSAGA) are also found better than the results using simple genetic algorithm only.
Keywords: Non-productive time, Airtime, 2.5 D milling, Laser cutting, Metaheuristic, Genetic Algorithm, Simulated Annealing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2726322 Novel Hybrid Approaches For Real Coded Genetic Algorithm to Compute the Optimal Control of a Single Stage Hybrid Manufacturing Systems
Authors: M. Senthil Arumugam, M.V.C. Rao
Abstract:
This paper presents a novel two-phase hybrid optimization algorithm with hybrid genetic operators to solve the optimal control problem of a single stage hybrid manufacturing system. The proposed hybrid real coded genetic algorithm (HRCGA) is developed in such a way that a simple real coded GA acts as a base level search, which makes a quick decision to direct the search towards the optimal region, and a local search method is next employed to do fine tuning. The hybrid genetic operators involved in the proposed algorithm improve both the quality of the solution and convergence speed. The phase–1 uses conventional real coded genetic algorithm (RCGA), while optimisation by direct search and systematic reduction of the size of search region is employed in the phase – 2. A typical numerical example of an optimal control problem with the number of jobs varying from 10 to 50 is included to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. Several statistical analyses are done to compare the validity of the proposed algorithm with the conventional RCGA and PSO techniques. Hypothesis t – test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) test are also carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The results clearly demonstrate that the proposed algorithm not only improves the quality but also is more efficient in converging to the optimal value faster. They can outperform the conventional real coded GA (RCGA) and the efficient particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm in quality of the optimal solution and also in terms of convergence to the actual optimum value.
Keywords: Hybrid systems, optimal control, real coded genetic algorithm (RCGA), Particle swarm optimization (PSO), Hybrid real coded GA (HRCGA), and Hybrid genetic operators.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1890321 An Investigation to Study the Moisture Dependency of Ground Enhancement Compound
Authors: Arunima Shukla, Vikas Almadi, Devesh Jaiswal, Sunil Saini, Bhusan S. Patil
Abstract:
Lightning protection consists of three main parts; mainly air termination system, down conductor, and earth termination system. Earth termination system is the most important part as earth is the sink and source of charges. Therefore, even when the charges are captured and delivered to the ground, and an easy path is not provided to the charges, earth termination system would lead to problems. Soil has significantly different resistivities ranging from 10 Ωm for wet organic soil to 10000 Ωm for bedrock. Different methods have been discussed and used conventionally such as deep-ground-well method and altering the length of the rod. Those methods are not considered economical. Therefore, it was a general practice to use charcoal along with salt to reduce the soil resistivity. Bentonite is worldwide acceptable material, that had led our interest towards study of bentonite at first. It was concluded that bentonite is a clay which is non-corrosive, environment friendly. Whereas bentonite is suitable only when there is moisture present in the soil, as in the absence of moisture, cracks will appear on the surface which will provide an open passage to the air, resulting into increase in the resistivity. Furthermore, bentonite without moisture does not have enough bonding property, moisture retention, conductivity, and non-leachability. Therefore, bentonite was used along with the other backfill material to overcome the dependency of bentonite on moisture. Different experiments were performed to get the best ratio of bentonite and carbon backfill. It was concluded that properties will highly depend on the quantity of bentonite and carbon-based backfill material.
Keywords: Backfill material, bentonite, conducting soil, grounding material, low resistivity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 426320 Shear Behaviour of RC Deep Beams with Openings Strengthened with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer
Authors: Mannal Tariq
Abstract:
Construction industry is making progress at a high pace. The trend of the world is getting more biased towards the high rise buildings. Deep beams are one of the most common elements in modern construction having small span to depth ratio. Deep beams are mostly used as transfer girders. This experimental study consists of 16 reinforced concrete (RC) deep beams. These beams were divided into two groups; A and B. Groups A and B consist of eight beams each, having 381 mm (15 in) and 457 mm (18 in) depth respectively. Each group was further subdivided into four sub groups each consisting of two identical beams. Each subgroup was comprised of solid/control beam (without opening), opening above neutral axis (NA), at NA and below NA. Except for control beams, all beams with openings were strengthened with carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) vertical strips. These eight groups differ from each other based on depth and location of openings. For testing sake, all beams have been loaded with two symmetrical point loads. All beams have been designed based on strut and tie model concept. The outcome of experimental investigation elaborates the difference in the shear behaviour of deep beams based on depth and location of circular openings variation. 457 mm (18 in) deep beam with openings above NA show the highest strength and 381 mm (15 in) deep beam with openings below NA show the least strength. CFRP sheets played a vital role in increasing the shear capacity of beams.
Keywords: CFRP, deep beams, openings in deep beams, strut and tie model, shear behaviour.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1345319 Equatorial Symmetry of Chaotic Solutions in Boussinesq Convection in a Rotating Spherical Shell
Authors: Keiji Kimura, Shin-ichi Takehiro, Michio Yamada
Abstract:
We investigate properties of convective solutions of the Boussinesq thermal convection in a moderately rotating spherical shell allowing the inner and outer sphere rotation due to the viscous torque of the fluid. The ratio of the inner and outer radii of the spheres, the Prandtl number and the Taylor number are fixed to 0.4, 1 and 5002, respectively. The inertial moments of the inner and outer spheres are fixed to about 0.22 and 100, respectively. The Rayleigh number is varied from 2.6 × 104 to 3.4 × 104. In this parameter range, convective solutions transit from equatorially symmetric quasiperiodic ones to equatorially asymmetric chaotic ones as the Rayleigh number is increased. The transition route in the system allowing rotation of both the spheres is different from that in the co-rotating system, which means the inner and outer spheres rotate with the same constant angular velocity: the convective solutions transit as equatorially symmetric quasi-periodic solution → equatorially symmetric chaotic solution → equatorially asymmetric chaotic solution in the system allowing both the spheres rotation, while equatorially symmetric quasi-periodic solution → equatorially asymmetric quasiperiodic solution → equatorially asymmetric chaotic solution in the co-rotating system.Keywords: thermal convection, numerical simulation, equatorial symmetry, quasi-periodic solution, chaotic solution
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1576318 Drop Impact Study on Flexible Superhydrophobic Surface Containing Micro-Nano Hierarchical Structures
Authors: Abinash Tripathy, Girish Muralidharan, Amitava Pramanik, Prosenjit Sen
Abstract:
Superhydrophobic surfaces are abundant in nature. Several surfaces such as wings of butterfly, legs of water strider, feet of gecko and the lotus leaf show extreme water repellence behaviour. Self-cleaning, stain-free fabrics, spill-resistant protective wears, drag reduction in micro-fluidic devices etc. are few applications of superhydrophobic surfaces. In order to design robust superhydrophobic surface, it is important to understand the interaction of water with superhydrophobic surface textures. In this work, we report a simple coating method for creating large-scale flexible superhydrophobic paper surface. The surface consists of multiple layers of silanized zirconia microparticles decorated with zirconia nanoparticles. Water contact angle as high as 159±10 and contact angle hysteresis less than 80 was observed. Drop impact studies on superhydrophobic paper surface were carried out by impinging water droplet and capturing its dynamics through high speed imaging. During the drop impact, the Weber number was varied from 20 to 80 by altering the impact velocity of the drop and the parameters such as contact time, normalized spread diameter were obtained. In contrast to earlier literature reports, we observed contact time to be dependent on impact velocity on superhydrophobic surface. Total contact time was split into two components as spread time and recoil time. The recoil time was found to be dependent on the impact velocity while the spread time on the surface did not show much variation with the impact velocity. Further, normalized spreading parameter was found to increase with increase in impact velocity.
Keywords: Contact angle, contact angle hysteresis, contact time, superhydrophobic.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1393317 Morphology of Indian Female Athletes of Different Track and Field Events
Authors: Anju Luthra, Rajender Lal, Dhananjoy Shaw
Abstract:
Participation in games and sports in the contemporary times has become more competing with the developed scientific knowledge, skills and methods, along with the equipment and applied research in the field. In spite of India being a large country having vast resources and potential, its performance in the world of sports on the whole needs sincere attention for better achievements. Beside numerous factors responsible for the dismal performance of a sportsperson, the physique and body composition, including the size, shape and form are known to play a significant role. The present investigation was undertaken to study the specific morphological characteristics of Indian female Track and Field athletes. A total of 300 athletes were randomly selected as sample for the purpose of the study from the six events having 50 athletes in each event including 100m., 400m., Shot Put, Discus Throw, Long Jump and High Jump. The study included body weight, body fat percentage, lean body weight, endomorphy, mesomorphy and ectomorphy as variables. The data were computed statistically by using Mean, Standard Deviation and Analysis of Variance. The post-hoc analysis was conducted where the F-ratio was found to be significant at .05 level. The study concluded that there is a significant difference with regard to the selected variables among the Indian female athletes of different track and field events.
Keywords: Indian female athletes, body composition, morphology, somatotypes, track and field.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 729316 Assessment of Analytical Equations for the Derivation of Young’s Modulus of Bonded Rubber Materials
Authors: Z. N. Haji, S. O. Oyadiji, H. Samami, O. Farrell
Abstract:
The prediction of the vibration response of rubber products by analytical or numerical method depends mainly on the predefined intrinsic material properties such as Young’s modulus, damping factor and Poisson’s ratio. Such intrinsic properties are determined experimentally by subjecting a bonded rubber sample to compression tests. The compression tests on such a sample yield an apparent Young’s modulus which is greater in magnitude than the intrinsic Young’s modulus of the rubber. As a result, many analytical equations have been developed to determine Young’s modulus from an apparent Young’s modulus of bonded rubber materials. In this work, the applicability of some of these analytical equations is assessed via experimental testing. The assessment is based on testing of vulcanized nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR70) samples using tensile test and compression test methods. The analytical equations are used to determine the intrinsic Young’s modulus from the apparent modulus that is derived from the compression test data of the bonded rubber samples. Then, these Young’s moduli are compared with the actual Young’s modulus that is derived from the tensile test data. The results show significant discrepancy between the Young’s modulus derived using the analytical equations and the actual Young’s modulus.
Keywords: Bonded rubber, quasi-static test, shape factor, apparent Young’s modulus.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 727315 Synthesizing an Artificial Loess for Geotechnical Investigations of Collapsible Soil Behavior
Authors: Hamed Sadeghi, Pouya A. Panahi, Hamed Nasiri, Mohammad Sadeghi
Abstract:
Collapsible soils like loess comprise an important category of problematic soils for construction purposes and sustainable development. As a result, research on both geological and geotechnical aspects of this type of soil have been in progress for decades. However, considerable natural variability in physical properties of in-situ loess strata even in a single block sample challenges the fundamental laboratory investigations. The reason behind this is that it is somehow impossible to remove the effect of a specific factor like void ratio from fair comparisons to come with a reliable conclusion. In order to cope with this limitation, two types of artificially made dispersive and calcareous loess are introduced which can be easily reproduced in any soil mechanics laboratory provided that all its compositions are known and controlled. The collapse potential is explored for a variety of soil water salinity and lime content and comparisons are made against the natural soil behavior. Trends are reported for the influence of pore water salinity on collapse potential under different osmotic flow conditions. The most important advantage of artificial loess is the ease of controlling cementing agent content like calcite or dispersive potential for studying their influence on mechanical soil behavior.
Keywords: Artificial loess, unsaturated soils, collapse potential, dispersive clays, laboratory tests.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 749314 Physico-Mechanical Properties of Jute-Coir Fiber Reinforced Hybrid Polypropylene Composites
Authors: Salma Siddika, Fayeka Mansura, Mahbub Hasan
Abstract:
The term hybrid composite refers to the composite containing more than one type of fiber material as reinforcing fillers. It has become attractive structural material due to the ability of providing better combination of properties with respect to single fiber containing composite. The eco-friendly nature as well as processing advantage, light weight and low cost have enhanced the attraction and interest of natural fiber reinforced composite. The objective of present research is to study the mechanical properties of jute-coir fiber reinforced hybrid polypropylene (PP) composite according to filler loading variation. In the present work composites were manufactured by using hot press machine at four levels of fiber loading (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt %). Jute and coir fibers were utilized at a ratio of (1:1) during composite manufacturing. Tensile, flexural, impact and hardness tests were conducted for mechanical characterization. Tensile test of composite showed a decreasing trend of tensile strength and increasing trend of the Young-s modulus with increasing fiber content. During flexural, impact and hardness tests, the flexural strength, flexural modulus, impact strength and hardness were found to be increased with increasing fiber loading. Based on the fiber loading used in this study, 20% fiber reinforced composite resulted the best set of mechanical properties.Keywords: Mechanical Properties; Coir, Jute, Polypropylene, Hybrid Composite.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3690313 Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach for Trading Automation in the Stock Market
Authors: Taylan Kabbani, Ekrem Duman
Abstract:
Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms can scale to previously intractable problems. The automation of profit generation in the stock market is possible using DRL, by combining the financial assets price ”prediction” step and the ”allocation” step of the portfolio in one unified process to produce fully autonomous systems capable of interacting with its environment to make optimal decisions through trial and error. This work represents a DRL model to generate profitable trades in the stock market, effectively overcoming the limitations of supervised learning approaches. We formulate the trading problem as a Partially observed Markov Decision Process (POMDP) model, considering the constraints imposed by the stock market, such as liquidity and transaction costs. We then solved the formulated POMDP problem using the Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) algorithm and achieved a 2.68 Sharpe ratio on the test dataset. From the point of view of stock market forecasting and the intelligent decision-making mechanism, this paper demonstrates the superiority of DRL in financial markets over other types of machine learning and proves its credibility and advantages of strategic decision-making.
Keywords: Autonomous agent, deep reinforcement learning, MDP, sentiment analysis, stock market, technical indicators, twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 505312 A Modern Review of the Spintronic Technology: Fundamentals, Materials, Devices, Circuits, Challenges, and Current Research Trends
Authors: Muhibul Haque Bhuyan
Abstract:
Spintronic, also termed spin electronics or spin transport electronics, is a kind of new technology, which exploits the two fundamental degrees of freedom- spin-state and charge-state of electrons to enhance the operational speed for the data storage and transfer efficiency of the device. Thus, it seems an encouraging technology to combat most of the prevailing complications in orthodox electron-based devices. This novel technology possesses the capacity to mix the semiconductor microelectronics and magnetic devices’ functionalities into one integrated circuit. Traditional semiconductor microelectronic devices use only the electronic charge to process the information based on binary numbers, 0 and 1. Due to the incessant shrinking of the transistor size, we are reaching the final limit of 1 nm or so. At this stage, the fabrication and other device operational processes will become challenging as the quantum effect comes into play. In this situation, we should find an alternative future technology, and spintronic may be such technology to transfer and store information. This review article provides a detailed discussion of the spintronic technology: fundamentals, materials, devices, circuits, challenges, and current research trends. At first, the fundamentals of spintronics technology are discussed. Then types, properties, and other issues of the spintronic materials are presented. After that, fabrication and working principles, as well as application areas and advantages/disadvantages of spintronic devices and circuits, are explained. Finally, the current challenges, current research areas, and prospects of spintronic technology are highlighted. This is a new paradigm of electronic cum magnetic devices built on the charge and spin of the electrons. Modern engineering and technological advances in search of new materials for this technology give us hope that this would be a very optimistic technology in the upcoming days.
Keywords: Spintronic technology, spin, charge, magnetic devices, spintronic devices, spintronic materials.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 733311 Effects of Different Dietary Crude Fiber Levels on the Growth Performance of Finishing Su-Shan Pigs
Authors: Li Bixia, Ren Shouwen, Fu Yanfeng, Tu Feng, Xiaoming Fang, Xueming Wang
Abstract:
The utilization of dietary crude fiber in different breed pigs is not the same. Su-shan pigs are a new breed formed by crossing Taihu pigs and Yorkshire pigs. In order to understand the resistance of Su-shan pigs to dietary crude fiber, 150 Su-shan pigs with 60 kg of average body weight and similar body conditions were allocated to three groups randomly, and there are 50 pigs in each group. The percentages of dietary crude fiber were 8.35%, 9.10%, and 11.39%, respectively. At the end of the experiment, 15 pigs randomly selected from each group were slaughtered. The results showed as follows: average daily gain of the 9.10% group was higher than that of the 8.35% group and the 11.39% group; there was a significant difference between the 9.10% group and the 8.35% group (p < 0.05. Levels of urea nitrogen, total cholesterol and high density lipoprotein in the 9.10% group were significantly higher than those in the 8.35% group and the 11.39% group (p < 0.05). Ratios of meat to fat in the 9.10% group and the 11.39% group were significantly higher than that in the 8.35% group (p < 0.05). Lean percentage of 9.10% group was higher than that of 8.35% group and 11.39% group, but there was no significant difference in three groups (p > 0.05). The weight of small intestine and large intestine in the 11.39% group was higher than that in the 8.35% group, and the 9.10% group and the difference reached a significant level (p < 0.05). In conclusion, increasing dietary crude fiber properly could reduce fat percentage, and improve the ratio of meat to fat of finishing Su-shan pigs. The digestion and metabolism of dietary crude fiber promoted the development of stomach and intestine of finishing Su-shan pig.
Keywords: Su-Shan pigs, dietary crude fiber, growth performance, serum biochemical indexes.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 963310 Using Ferry Access Points to Improve the Performance of Message Ferrying in Delay-Tolerant Networks
Authors: Farzana Yasmeen, Md. Nurul Huda, Md. Enamul Haque, Michihiro Aoki, Shigeki Yamada
Abstract:
Delay-Tolerant Networks (DTNs) are sparse, wireless networks where disconnections are common due to host mobility and low node density. The Message Ferrying (MF) scheme is a mobilityassisted paradigm to improve connectivity in DTN-like networks. A ferry or message ferry is a special node in the network which has a per-determined route in the deployed area and relays messages between mobile hosts (MHs) which are intermittently connected. Increased contact opportunities among mobile hosts and the ferry improve the performance of the network, both in terms of message delivery ratio and average end-end delay. However, due to the inherent mobility of mobile hosts and pre-determined periodicity of the message ferry, mobile hosts may often -miss- contact opportunities with a ferry. In this paper, we propose the combination of stationary ferry access points (FAPs) with MF routing to increase contact opportunities between mobile hosts and the MF and consequently improve the performance of the DTN. We also propose several placement models for deploying FAPs on MF routes. We evaluate the performance of the FAP placement models through comprehensive simulation. Our findings show that FAPs do improve the performance of MF-assisted DTNs and symmetric placement of FAPs outperforms other placement strategies.Keywords: Service infrastructure, delay-tolerant network, messageferry routing, placement models.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1970309 Influence of Concrete Cracking in the Tensile Strength of Cast-in Headed Anchors
Authors: W. Nataniel, B. Lima, J. Manoel, M. P. Filho, H. Marcos, Oliveira Mauricio, P. Ferreira
Abstract:
Headed reinforcement bars are increasingly used for anchorage in concrete structures. Applications include connections in composite steel-concrete structures, such as beam-column joints, in several strengthening situations as well as in more traditional uses in cast-in-place and precast structural systems. This paper investigates the reduction in the ultimate tensile capacity of embedded cast-in headed anchors due to concrete cracking. A series of nine laboratory tests are carried out to evaluate the influence of cracking on the concrete breakout strength in tension. The experimental results show that cracking affects both the resistance and load-slip response of the headed bar anchors. The strengths measured in these tests are compared to theoretical resistances calculated following the recommendations presented by fib Bulletin no. 58 (2011), ETAG 001 (2010) and ACI 318 (2014). The influences of parameters such as the effective embedment depth (hef), bar diameter (ds), and the concrete compressive strength (fc) are analysed and discussed. The theoretical recommendations are shown to be over-conservative for both embedment depths and were, in general, inaccurate in comparison to the experimental trends. The ACI 318 (2014) was the design code which presented the best performance regarding to the predictions of the ultimate load, with an average of 1.42 for the ratio between the experimental and estimated strengths, standard deviation of 0.36, and coefficient of variation equal to 0.25.
Keywords: Cast-in headed anchors, concrete cone failure, uncracked concrete, cracked concrete.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 652308 Water and Soil Environment Pollution Reduction by Filter Strips
Authors: Roy R. Gu, Mahesh Sahu, Xianggui Zhao
Abstract:
Contour filter strips planted with perennial vegetation can be used to improve surface and ground water quality by reducing pollutant, such as NO3-N, and sediment outflow from cropland to a river or lake. Meanwhile, the filter strips of perennial grass with biofuel potentials also have economic benefits of producing ethanol. In this study, The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was applied to the Walnut Creek Watershed to examine the effectiveness of contour strips in reducing NO3-N outflows from crop fields to the river or lake. Required input data include watershed topography, slope, soil type, land-use, management practices in the watershed and climate parameters (precipitation, maximum/minimum air temperature, solar radiation, wind speed and relative humidity). Numerical experiments were conducted to identify potential subbasins in the watershed that have high water quality impact, and to examine the effects of strip size and location on NO3-N reduction in the subbasins under various meteorological conditions (dry, average and wet). Variable sizes of contour strips (10%, 20%, 30% and 50%, respectively, of a subbasin area) planted with perennial switchgrass were selected for simulating the effects of strip size and location on stream water quality. Simulation results showed that a filter strip having 10%-50% of the subbasin area could lead to 55%- 90% NO3-N reduction in the subbasin during an average rainfall year. Strips occupying 10-20% of the subbasin area were found to be more efficient in reducing NO3-N when placed along the contour than that when placed along the river. The results of this study can assist in cost-benefit analysis and decision-making in best water resources management practices for environmental protection.Keywords: modeling, SWAT, water quality, NO3-N, watershed.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1730307 Investigating the Effectiveness of Self-Shading Strategy on Overall Thermal Transfer Value and Window Size in High Rise Buildings
Authors: Mansour Nikpour, Mohd Zin kandar, Mohammad Ghomeshi, Nima Moeinzadeh, Mohsen Ghasemi
Abstract:
So much energy is used in high rise buildings to fulfill the basic needs of users such as lighting and thermal comfort. Malaysia has hot and humid climate, buildings especially high rise buildings receive unnecessary solar radiation that cause more solar heat gain. Energy use specially electricity consumption in high rise buildings has increased. There have been growing concerns about energy consumption and its effect on environment. Building, energy and the environment are important issues that the designers should consider to them. Self protected form is one of possible ways against the impact of solar radiation in high rise buildings. The Energy performance of building envelopes was investigated in term of the Overall Thermal Transfer Value (OTTV ).In this paper, the amount of OTTV reduction was calculated through OTTV Equations to clear the effectiveness of self shading strategy on minimizing energy consumption for cooling interior spaces in high rise buildings which has considerable envelope areas against solar radiation. Also increasing the optimum window area was investigated using self-shading strategy in designing high rise buildings. As result, the significant reduction in OTTV was shown based on WWR.In addition slight increase was demonstrated in WWR that can influence on visible comfort interior spaces.Keywords: Self-shading strategy, high rise buildings, Overall thermal transfer value (OTTV ), Window to wall ratio (WWR).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2813306 A Novel SVM-Based OOK Detector in Low SNR Infrared Channels
Authors: J. P. Dubois, O. M. Abdul-Latif
Abstract:
Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a recent class of statistical classification and regression techniques playing an increasing role in applications to detection problems in various engineering problems, notably in statistical signal processing, pattern recognition, image analysis, and communication systems. In this paper, SVM is applied to an infrared (IR) binary communication system with different types of channel models including Ricean multipath fading and partially developed scattering channel with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) at the receiver. The structure and performance of SVM in terms of the bit error rate (BER) metric is derived and simulated for these channel stochastic models and the computational complexity of the implementation, in terms of average computational time per bit, is also presented. The performance of SVM is then compared to classical binary signal maximum likelihood detection using a matched filter driven by On-Off keying (OOK) modulation. We found that the performance of SVM is superior to that of the traditional optimal detection schemes used in statistical communication, especially for very low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranges. For large SNR, the performance of the SVM is similar to that of the classical detectors. The implication of these results is that SVM can prove very beneficial to IR communication systems that notoriously suffer from low SNR at the cost of increased computational complexity.
Keywords: Least square-support vector machine, on-off keying, matched filter, maximum likelihood detector, wireless infrared communication.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1944305 Validity of Universe Structure Conception as Nested Vortexes
Authors: Khaled M. Nabil
Abstract:
This paper introduces the Nested Vortexes conception of the universe structure and interprets all the physical phenomena according this conception. The paper first reviews recent physics theories, either in microscopic scale or macroscopic scale, to collect evidence that the space is not empty. But, these theories describe the property of the space medium without determining its structure. Determining the structure of space medium is essential to understand the mechanism that leads to its properties. Without determining the space medium structure, many phenomena; such as electric and magnetic fields, gravity, or wave-particle duality remain uninterpreted. Thus, this paper introduces a conception about the structure of the universe. It assumes that the universe is a medium of ultra-tiny homogeneous particles which are still undiscovered. Like any medium with certain movements, possibly because of a great asymmetric explosion, vortexes have occurred. A vortex condenses the ultra-tiny particles in its center forming a bigger particle, the bigger particles, in turn, could be trapped in a bigger vortex and condense in its center forming a much bigger particle and so on. This conception describes galaxies, stars, protons as particles at different levels. Existing of the particle’s vortexes make the consistency of the speed of light postulate is not true. This conception shows that the vortex motion dynamic agrees with the motion of all the universe particles at any level. An experiment has been carried out to detect the orbiting effect of aggregated vortexes of aligned atoms of a permanent magnet. Based on the described particle’s structure, the gravity force of a particle and attraction between particles as well as charge, electric and magnetic fields and quantum mechanics characteristics are interpreted. All augmented physics phenomena are solved.
Keywords: Astrophysics, cosmology, particles’ structure model, particles’ forces, vortex dynamics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 833304 Fruit Growing in Romania and Its Role for Rural Communities’ Development
Authors: Maria Toader, Gheorghe Valentin Roman
Abstract:
The importance of fruit trees and bushes growing for Romania is due the concordance that exists between the different ecological conditions in natural basins, and the requirements of different species and varieties. There are, in Romania, natural areas dedicated to the main trees species: plum, apple, pear, cherry, sour cherry, finding optimal conditions for harnessing the potential of fruitfulness, making fruit quality both in terms of ratio commercial, and content in active principles. The share of fruits crops in the world economy of agricultural production is due primarily to the role of fruits in nourishment for human, and in the prevention and combating of diseases, in increasing the national income of cultivator countries and to improve comfort for human life. For Romania, the perspectives of the sector are positive, and are due to European funding opportunities, which provide farmers a specialized program that meets the needs of development and modernization of fruit growing industry, cultivation technology and equipment, organization and grouping of producers, creating storage facilities, conditioning, marketing and the joint use of fresh fruit. This paper shows the evolution of fruit growing, in Romania compared to other states. The document presents the current situation of the main tree species both in terms of surface but also of the productions and the role that this activity may have for the development of rural communities.
Keywords: Fruit growing, fruits trees, productivity, rural development.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1372303 Acoustic Behavior of Polymer Foam Composite of Shorea leprosula after UV-Irradiation Exposure
Authors: Anika Zafiah M. Rus, S. Shafizah
Abstract:
This study was developed to compare the behavior and the ability of polymer foam composites towards sound absorption test of Shorea leprosula wood (SL) of acid hydrolysis treatment with particle size <355μm. Three different weight ratio of polyol to wood particle has been selected which are 10wt%, 15wt% and 20wt%. The acid hydrolysis treatment is to optimize the surface interaction of wood particle with polymer foam matrix. In addition, the acoustic characteristic of sound absorption coefficient (α) was determined. Further treatment is to expose the polymer composite in UV irradiation by using UV-Weatherometer. Polymer foam composite of untreated Shorea leprosula particle (SL-B) with respective percentage loading shows uniform pore structure as compared with treated wood particle (SL-A). As the filler percentage loading in polymer foam increases, the α value approaching 1 for both samples. Furthermore, SL-A shows better α value at 3500-4500 frequency absorption level (Hz), meanwhile α value for SL-B is maximum at 4000-5000 Hz. The frequencies absorption level for both SL-B and SL-A after UV exposure was increased with the increasing of exposure time from 0-1000 hours. It is therefore, concluded that the α for each sound absorbing material, with or without acid hydrolysis treatment of wood particles and it’s percentages loading in polymer matrix effect the sound absorption behavior.
Keywords: Polymer foam composite, sound absorption coefficient, UV-irradiation, wood.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2364302 Comparison of Stationary and Two-Axis Tracking System of 50MW Photovoltaic Power Plant in Al-Kufra, Libya: Landscape Impact and Performance
Authors: Yasser Aldali
Abstract:
The scope of this paper is to evaluate and compare the potential of LS-PV(Large Scale Photovoltaic Power Plant) power generation systems in the southern region of Libya at Al-Kufra for both stationary and tracking systems. A Microsoft Excel-VBA program has been developed to compute slope radiation, dew-point, sky temperature, and then cell temperature, maximum power output and module efficiency of the system for stationary system and for tracking system. The results for energy production show that the total energy output is 114GWh/year for stationary system and 148GWh/year for tracking system. The average module efficiency for the stationary system is 16.6% and 16.2% for the tracking system.
The values of electricity generation capacity factor (CF) and solar capacity factor (SCF) for stationary system were found to be 26% and 62.5% respectively and 34% and 82% for tracking system. The GCR (Ground Cover Ratio) for a stationary system is 0.7, which corresponds to a tilt angle of 24°. The GCR for tracking system was found to be 0.12. The estimated ground area needed to build a 50MW PV plant amounts to approx. 0.55km2 for a stationary PV field constituted by HIT PV arrays and approx. 91MW/ km2. In case of a tracker PV field, the required ground area amounts approx.2.4km2 and approx. 20.5MW/ km2.
Keywords: Large PV power plant, solar energy, environmental impact, Dual-axis tracking system, stationary system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3091301 A Study of the Replacement of Natural Coarse Aggregate by Spherically-Shaped and Crushed Waste Cathode Ray Tube Glass in Concrete
Authors: N. N. M. Pauzi, M. R. Karim, M. Jamil, R. Hamid, M. F. M. Zain
Abstract:
The aim of this study is to conduct an experimental investigation on the influence of complete replacement of natural coarse aggregate with spherically-shape and crushed waste cathode ray tube (CRT) glass to the aspect of workability, density, and compressive strength of the concrete. After characterizing the glass, a group of concrete mixes was prepared to contain a 40% spherical CRT glass and 60% crushed CRT glass as a complete (100%) replacement of natural coarse aggregates. From a total of 16 types of concrete mixes, the optimum proportion was selected based on its best performance. The test results showed that the use of spherical and crushed glass that possesses a smooth surface, rounded, irregular and elongated shape, and low water absorption affects the workability of concrete. Due to a higher specific gravity of crushed glass, concrete mixes containing CRT glass had a higher density compared to ordinary concrete. Despite the spherical and crushed CRT glass being stronger than gravel, the results revealed a reduction in compressive strength of the concrete. However, using a lower water to binder (w/b) ratio and a higher superplasticizer (SP) dosage, it is found to enhance the compressive strength of 60.97 MPa at 28 days that is lower by 13% than the control specimen. These findings indicate that waste CRT glass in the form of spherical and crushed could be used as an alternative of coarse aggregate that may pave the way for the disposal of hazardous e-waste.
Keywords: Cathode ray tube, glass, coarse aggregate, compressive strength.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1360300 Non-reacting Numerical Simulation of Axisymmetric Trapped Vortex Combustor
Authors: Heval Serhat Uluk, Sam M. Dakka, Kuldeep Singh, Richard Jefferson-Loveday
Abstract:
This paper will focus on the suitability of a trapped vortex combustor as a candidate for gas turbine combustor objectives to minimize pressure drop across the combustor and investigate aerodynamic performance. Non-reacting simulation of axisymmetric cavity trapped vortex combustors was run to investigate the pressure drop for various cavity aspect ratios of 0.3, 0.6 and 1 and for air mass flow rates of 14 m/s, 28 m/s and 42 m/s. A numerical study of an axisymmetric trapped vortex combustor was carried out by using two-dimensional and three-dimensional computational domains. A comparison study was conducted between Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) k-ε Realizable with enhanced wall treatment and RANS k-ω Shear Stress Transport (SST) models to find the most suitable turbulence model. It was found that the k-ω SST model gives relatively close results to experimental outcomes. The numerical results were validated and showed good agreement with the experimental data. Pressure drop rises with increasing air mass flow rate, and the lowest pressure drop was observed at 0.6 cavity aspect ratio for all air mass flow rates tested, which agrees with the experimental outcome. A mixing enhancement study showed that 30-degree angle air injectors provide improved fuel-air mixing.
Keywords: Aerodynamic, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Propulsion, Trapped Vortex Combustor.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 40299 Analysis of the Elastic Energy Released and Characterization of the Eruptive Episodes Intensity’s during 2014-2015 at El Reventador Volcano, Ecuador
Authors: Paúl I. Cornejo
Abstract:
The elastic energy released through Strombolian explosions has been quite studied, detailing various processes, sources, and precursory events at several volcanoes. We realized an analysis based on the relative partitioning of the elastic energy radiated into the atmosphere and ground by Strombolian-type explosions recorded at El Reventador volcano, using infrasound and seismic signals at high and moderate seismicity episodes during intense eruptive stages of explosive and effusive activity. Our results show that considerable values of Volcano Acoustic-Seismic Ratio (VASR or η) are obtained at high seismicity stages. VASR is a physical diagnostic of explosive degassing that we used to compare eruption mechanisms at El Reventador volcano for two datasets of explosions recorded at a Broad-Band BB seismic and infrasonic station located at ~5 kilometers from the vent. We conclude that the acoustic energy EA released during explosive activity (VASR η = 0.47, standard deviation σ = 0.8) is higher than the EA released during effusive activity; therefore, producing the highest values of η. Furthermore, we realized the analysis and characterization of the eruptive intensity for two episodes at high seismicity, calculating a η three-time higher for an episode of effusive activity with an occasional explosive component (η = 0.32, and σ = 0.42), than a η for an episode of only effusive activity (η = 0.11, and σ = 0.18), but more energetic.Keywords: Effusive, explosion quakes, explosive, strombolian, VASR.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 774298 Bone Mineral Density and Quality, Body Composition of Women in the Postmenopausal Period
Authors: Vladyslav Povoroznyuk, Oksana Ivanyk, Nataliia Dzerovych
Abstract:
In the diagnostics of osteoporosis, the gold standard is considered to be bone mineral density; however, X-ray densitometry is not an accurate indicator of osteoporotic fracture risk under all circumstances. In this regard, the search for new methods that could determine the indicators not only of the mineral density, but of the bone tissue quality, is a logical step for diagnostic optimization. One of these methods is the evaluation of trabecular bone quality. The aim of this study was to examine the quality and mineral density of spine bone tissue, femoral neck, and body composition of women depending on the duration of the postmenopausal period, to determine the correlation of body fat with indicators of bone mineral density and quality. The study examined 179 women in premenopausal and postmenopausal periods. The patients were divided into the following groups: Women in the premenopausal period and women in the postmenopausal period at various stages (early, middle, late postmenopause). A general examination and study of the above parameters were conducted with General Electric X-ray densitometer. The results show that bone quality and mineral density probably deteriorate with advancing of postmenopausal period. Total fat and lean mass ratio is not likely to change with age. In the middle and late postmenopausal periods, the bone tissue mineral density of the spine and femoral neck increases along with total fat mass.
Keywords: Osteoporosis, bone tissue mineral density, bone quality, fat mass, lean mass, postmenopausal osteoporosis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 926297 Target Detection using Adaptive Progressive Thresholding Based Shifted Phase-Encoded Fringe-Adjusted Joint Transform Correlator
Authors: Inder K. Purohit, M. Nazrul Islam, K. Vijayan Asari, Mohammad A. Karim
Abstract:
A new target detection technique is presented in this paper for the identification of small boats in coastal surveillance. The proposed technique employs an adaptive progressive thresholding (APT) scheme to first process the given input scene to separate any objects present in the scene from the background. The preprocessing step results in an image having only the foreground objects, such as boats, trees and other cluttered regions, and hence reduces the search region for the correlation step significantly. The processed image is then fed to the shifted phase-encoded fringe-adjusted joint transform correlator (SPFJTC) technique which produces single and delta-like correlation peak for a potential target present in the input scene. A post-processing step involves using a peak-to-clutter ratio (PCR) to determine whether the boat in the input scene is authorized or unauthorized. Simulation results are presented to show that the proposed technique can successfully determine the presence of an authorized boat and identify any intruding boat present in the given input scene.Keywords: Adaptive progressive thresholding, fringe adjusted filters, image segmentation, joint transform correlation, synthetic discriminant function
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1199296 Effect of Biomass Feedstocks on the Production of Hydrogenated Biodiesel
Authors: Panatcha Bovornseripatai, Siriporn Jongpatiwut, Somchai Osuwan, Suchada Butnark
Abstract:
Hydrogenated biodiesel is one of the most promising renewable fuels. It has many advantages over conventional biodiesel, including higher cetane number, higher heating value, lower viscosity, and lower corrosiveness due to its absence of oxygen. From previous work, Pd/TiO2 gave high conversion and selectivity in hydrogenated biodiesel. In this work, the effect of biomass feedstocks (i.e. beef fat, chicken fat, pork fat, and jatropha oil) on the production of hydrogenated biodiesel over Pd/TiO2 has been studied. Biomass feedstocks were analyzed by ICP-OES (inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry) to identify the content of impurities (i.e. P, K, Ca, Na, and Mg). The deoxygenation catalyst, Pd/TiO2, was prepared by incipient wetness impregnation (IWI) and tested in a continuous flow packed-bed reactor at 500 psig, 325°C, H2/feed molar ratio of 30, and LHSV of 4 h-1 for its catalytic activity and selectivity in hydrodeoxygenation. All feedstocks gave high selectivity in diesel specification range hydrocarbons and the main hydrocarbons were n-pentadecane (n-C15) and n-heptadecane (n- C17), resulting from the decarbonylation/decarboxylation reaction. Intermediates such as oleic acid, stearic acid, palmitic acid, and esters were also detected in minor amount. The conversion of triglycerides in jatropha oil is higher than those of chicken fat, pork fat, and beef fat, respectively. The higher concentration of metal impurities in feedstock, the lower conversion of feedstock.Keywords: Hydrogenated biodiesel, hydrodeoxygenation, Pd/TiO2, biomass feedstock
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1958295 Investigation of Compressive Strength of Slag-Based Geopolymer Concrete Incorporated with Rice Husk Ash Using 12M Alkaline Activator
Authors: Festus A. Olutoge, Ahmed A. Akintunde, Anuoluwapo S. Kolade, Aaron A. Chadee, Jovanca Smith
Abstract:
Geopolymer concrete's (GPC) compressive strength was investigated. The GPC was incorporated with rice husk ash (RHA) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS), which may have potential in the construction industry to replace Portland limestone cement (PLC) concrete. The sustainable construction binders used were GGBFS and RHA, and a solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium silicate gel (Na2SiO3) was used as the 12-molar alkaline activator. Five GPC mixes comprising fine aggregates, coarse aggregates, GGBS, and RHA, and the alkaline solution in the ratio 2: 2.5: 1: 0.5, respectively, were prepared to achieve grade 40 concrete, and PLC was substituted with GGBFS and RHA in the ratios of 0:100, 25:75, 50:50, 75:25, and 100:0. A control mix was also prepared which comprised of 100% water and 100% PLC as the cementitious material. The GPC mixes were thermally cured at 60-80 ºC in an oven for approximately 24 h. After curing for 7 and 28 days, the compressive strength test results of the hardened GPC samples showed that GPC-Mix #3, comprising 50% GGBFS and 50% RHA, was the most efficient geopolymer mix. The mix had compressive strengths of 35.71 MPa and 47.26 MPa, 19.87% and 8.69% higher than the PLC concrete samples, which had 29.79 MPa and 43.48 MPa after 7 and 28 days, respectively. Therefore, GPC containing GGBFS incorporated with RHA is an efficient method of decreasing the use of PLC in conventional concrete production and reducing the high amounts of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere in the construction industry.
Keywords: Alkaline solution, cementitious material, geopolymer concrete, ground granulated blast furnace slag, rice husk ash.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 169