Search results for: reducing fuel
1067 Sustainable Energy Production with Closed-Loop Methods: Evaluating the Influence of Power Plant Age on Production Efficiency and Environmental Impact
Authors: Bujar Ismaili, Bahti Ismajli, Venhar Ismaili, Skender Ramadani
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In Kosovo, the problem with the electricity supply is huge and it does not meet the demands of consumers. Older thermal power plants, which are regarded as big environmental polluters, produce most of the energy. Our experiment is based on the production of electricity using the closed method that does not affect environmental pollution by using waste as fuel that is considered to pollute the environment. The experiment was carried out in the village of Godanc, municipality of Shtime, Kosovo. In the experiment, a production line based on the production of electricity and central heating was designed at the same time. The results are the benefits of electricity as well as the release of temperature for heating with minimal expenses and with the release of 0% gases into the atmosphere. During this experiment, coal, plastic, waste from wood processing, and agricultural wastes were used as raw materials. The method utilized in the experiment allows for the release of gas through pipes and filters during the top-to-bottom combustion of the raw material in the boiler, followed by the method of gas filtration from waste wood processing (sawdust). During this process, the final product, gas, is obtained. This gas passes through the carburetor, enabling the combustion process to put the internal combustion machine and the generator into operation and produce electricity that does not release gases into the atmosphere. The results show that the system provides energy stability without environmental pollution from toxic substances and waste, as well as with low production costs. From the final results, it follows that, in the case of using coal fuel, we have benefited from more electricity and higher temperature release, followed by plastic waste, which also gave good results. The results obtained during these experiments prove that the current problems of lack of electricity and heating can be met at a lower cost and have a clean environment and waste management.
Keywords: Energy, heating, atmosphere, waste management, gasification.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2231066 Role of Facade in Sustainability Enhancement of Contemporary Iranian Buildings
Authors: H. Nejadriahi
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A growing demand for sustainability makes sustainability as one of the significant debates of nowadays. Energy saving is one of the main criteria to be considered in the context of sustainability. Reducing energy use in buildings is one of the most important ways to reduce humans’ overall environmental impact. Taking this into consideration, study of different design strategies, which can assist in reducing energy use and subsequently improving the sustainability level of today's buildings would be an essential task. The sustainability level of a building is highly affected by the sustainability performance of its components. One of the main building components, which can have a great impact on energy saving and sustainability level of the building, is its facade. The aim of this study is to investigate on the role of facade in sustainability enhancement of the contemporary buildings of Iran. In this study, the concept of sustainability in architecture, the building facades, and their relationship to sustainability are explained briefly. Following that, a number of contemporary Iranian buildings are discussed and analyzed in terms of different design strategies used in their facades in accordance to the sustainability concepts. The methods used in this study are descriptive and analytic. The results of this paper would assist in generating a wider vision and a source of inspiration for the current designers to design and create environmental and sustainable buildings for the future.
Keywords: Building facade, contemporary buildings, Iran, sustainability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9871065 Intelligent System and Renewable Energy: A Farming Platform in Precision Agriculture
Authors: Ryan B. Escorial, Elmer A. Maravillas, Chris Jordan G. Aliac
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This study presents a small-scale water pumping system utilizing a fuzzy logic inference system attached to a renewable energy source. The fuzzy logic controller was designed and simulated in MATLAB fuzzy logic toolbox to examine the properties and characteristics of the input and output variables. The result of the simulation was implemented in a microcontroller, together with sensors, modules, and photovoltaic cells. The study used a grand rapid variety of lettuce, organic substrates, and foliar for observation of the capability of the device to irrigate crops. Two plant boxes intended for manual and automated irrigation were prepared with each box having 48 heads of lettuce. The observation of the system took 22-31 days, which is one harvest period of the crop. Results showed a 22.55% increase in agricultural productivity compared to manual irrigation. Aside from reducing human effort, and time, the smart irrigation system could help lessen some of the shortcomings of manual irrigations. It could facilitate the economical utilization of water, reducing consumption by 25%. The use of renewable energy could also help farmers reduce the cost of production by minimizing the use of diesel and gasoline.
Keywords: Fuzzy logic controller, intelligent system, precision agriculture, renewable energy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22971064 Reducing Variation of Dyeing Process in Textile Manufacturing Industry
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This study deals with a multi-criteria optimization problem which has been transformed into a single objective optimization problem using Response Surface Methodology (RSM), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Grey Relational Analyses (GRA) approach. Grey-RSM and Grey-ANN are hybrid techniques which can be used for solving multi-criteria optimization problem. There have been two main purposes of this research as follows. 1. To determine optimum and robust fiber dyeing process conditions by using RSM and ANN based on GRA, 2. To obtain the best suitable model by comparing models developed by different methodologies. The design variables for fiber dyeing process in textile are temperature, time, softener, anti-static, material quantity, pH, retarder, and dispergator. The quality characteristics to be evaluated are nominal color consistency of fiber, maximum strength of fiber, minimum color of dyeing solution. GRA-RSM with exact level value, GRA-RSM with interval level value and GRA-ANN models were compared based on GRA output value and MSE (Mean Square Error) performance measurement of outputs with each other. As a result, GRA-ANN with interval value model seems to be suitable reducing the variation of dyeing process for GRA output value of the model.Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Grey Relational Analysis, Optimization, Response Surface Methodology
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 35541063 Valorization of Waste Dates in South Algeria: Biofuel Production
Authors: Insaf Mehani, Bachir Bouchekima
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In Algeria, the conditioning units of dates, generate significant quantities of waste arising from sorting deviations. This biomass, until then considered as a waste with high impact on the environment can be transformed into high value added product. It is possible to develop common dates of low commercial value, and put on the local and international market a new generation of products with high added values such as bio ethanol. Besides its use in chemical synthesis, bio ethanol can be blended with gasoline to produce a clean fuel while improving the octane.Keywords: Bioenergy, dates, bioethanol, valorisation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14621062 Microkinetic Modelling of NO Reduction on Pt Catalysts
Authors: Vishnu S. Prasad, Preeti Aghalayam
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The major harmful automobile exhausts are nitric oxide (NO) and unburned hydrocarbon (HC). Reduction of NO using unburned fuel HC as a reductant is the technique used in hydrocarbon-selective catalytic reduction (HC-SCR). In this work, we study the microkinetic modelling of NO reduction using propene as a reductant on Pt catalysts. The selectivity of NO reduction to N2O is detected in some ranges of operating conditions, whereas the effect of inlet O2% causes a number of changes in the feasible regimes of operation.
Keywords: Microkinetic modelling, NOx, Pt on alumina catalysts, selective catalytic reduction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14821061 Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Recyclable Material Bank Project of Universities in Central Region of Thailand
Authors: Ronbanchob Apiratikul
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This research studied recycled waste by the Recyclable Material Bank Project of 4 universities in the central region of Thailand for the evaluation of reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared with landfilling activity during July 2012 to June 2013. The results showed that the projects collected total amount of recyclable wastes of about 911,984.80 kilograms. Office paper had the largest amount among these recycled wastes (50.68% of total recycled waste). Groups of recycled waste can be prioritized from high to low according to their amount as paper, plastic, glass, mixed recyclables, and metal, respectively. The project reduced greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to about 2814.969 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The most significant recycled waste that affects the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is office paper which is 70.16% of total reduced greenhouse gasses emission. According to amount of reduced greenhouse gasses emission, groups of recycled waste can be prioritized from high to low significances as paper, plastic, metals, mixed recyclables, and glass, respectively.
Keywords: Recycling, garbage bank, waste management, recyclable wastes, greenhouse gasses.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18761060 Reducing Greenhouse Gasses Emissions by Recyclable Material Bank Project in Universities of Thailand
Authors: Ronbanchob Apiratikul
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This research studied recycled wastes by Recyclable Material Bank project of 17 universities of Thailand for evaluation of reducing greenhouse gasses emission compared with landfilling activity during January 2011 to December 2011. The results showed that the projects collected total amount of recyclable wastes about 1,626.917 metric ton. The office paper has the largest amount among these recycled wastes (55.61 % of total recycled wastes). Groups of recycled waste can be prioritized from high to low according to their amount as paper, plastic, glass, mixed recyclables and metal, respectively. The project reduced greenhouse gasses emission equivalent to about 5,263.481 metric ton of carbon dioxide. The most significant recycled waste that affects the reduction of greenhouse gasses emission is office paper which is 73.45% of total reduced greenhouse gasses emission. According to amount of reduced greenhouse gasses emission, groups of recycled waste can be prioritized from high to low significances as paper, plastic, metal, mixed recyclables and glass, respectively.
Keywords: recycling, garbage bank, waste management, recyclable wastes, greenhouse gasses
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14161059 Production Process for Diesel Fuel Components Polyoxymethylene Dimethyl Ethers from Methanol and Formaldehyde Solution
Authors: Xiangjun Li, Huaiyuan Tian, Wujie Zhang, Dianhua Liu
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Polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODEn) as clean diesel additive can improve the combustion efficiency and quality of diesel fuel and alleviate the problem of atmospheric pollution. Considering synthetic routes, PODE production from methanol and formaldehyde is regarded as the most economical and promising synthetic route. However, methanol used for synthesizing PODE can produce water, which causes the loss of active center of catalyst and hydrolysis of PODEn in the production process. Macroporous strong acidic cation exchange resin catalyst was prepared, which has comparative advantages over other common solid acid catalysts in terms of stability and catalytic efficiency for synthesizing PODE. Catalytic reactions were carried out under 353 K, 1 MPa and 3mL·gcat-1·h-1 in a fixed bed reactor. Methanol conversion and PODE3-6 selectivity reached 49.91% and 23.43%, respectively. Catalyst lifetime evaluation showed that resin catalyst retained its catalytic activity for 20 days without significant changes and catalytic activity of completely deactivated resin catalyst can basically return to previous level by simple acid regeneration. The acid exchange capacities of original and deactivated catalyst were 2.5191 and 0.0979 mmol·g-1, respectively, while regenerated catalyst reached 2.0430 mmol·g-1, indicating that the main reason for resin catalyst deactivation is that Brønsted acid sites of original resin catalyst were temporarily replaced by non-hydrogen ion cations. A separation process consisting of extraction and distillation for PODE3-6 product was designed for separation of water and unreacted formaldehyde from reactive mixture and purification of PODE3-6, respectively. The concentration of PODE3-6 in final product can reach up to 97%. These results indicate that the scale-up production of PODE3-6 from methanol and formaldehyde solution is feasible.
Keywords: Inactivation, polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers, separation process, sulfonic cation exchange resin.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9001058 Experimental Characterization of the Thermal Behavior of a Sawdust Mortar
Authors: F. Taouche-Kheloui, O. Fedaoui-Akmoussi, K. Ait tahar, Li. Alex
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Currently, the reduction of energy consumption, through the use of abundant and recyclable natural materials, for better thermal insulation represents an important area of research. To this end, the use of bio-sourced materials has been identified as one of the green sectors with a very high economic development potential for the future. Because of its role in reducing the consumption of fossil-based raw materials, it contributes significantly to the storage of atmospheric carbon, limits greenhouse gas emissions and creates new economic opportunities. This study constitutes a contribution to the elaboration and the experimental characterization of the thermal behavior of a sawdust-reduced mortar matrix. We have taken into account the influence of the size of the grain fibers of sawdust, hence the use of three different ranges and also different percentage in the different confections. The intended practical application consists of producing a light weight compound at a lower cost to ensure a better thermal and acoustic behavior compared to that existing in the field, in addition to the desired resistances. Improving energy performance, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector, is amongst the objectives to be achieved. The results are very encouraging and highlight the value of the proposed design of organic-source mortar panels which have specific mechanical properties acceptable for their use, low densities, lower cost of manufacture and labor, and above all a positive impact on the environment.
Keywords: Mortar, sawdust waste, thermal, experimental, analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5931057 A Systematic Map of the Research Trends in Wildfire Management in Mediterranean-Climate Regions
Authors: Renata Martins Pacheco, João Claro
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Wildfires are becoming an increasing concern worldwide, causing substantial social, economic, and environmental disruptions. This situation is especially relevant in Mediterranean-climate regions, present in all the five continents of the world, in which fire is not only a natural component of the environment but also perhaps one of the most important evolutionary forces. The rise in wildfire occurrences and their associated impacts suggests the need for identifying knowledge gaps and enhancing the basis of scientific evidence on how managers and policymakers may act effectively to address them. Considering that the main goal of a systematic map is to collate and catalog a body of evidence to describe the state of knowledge for a specific topic, it is a suitable approach to be used for this purpose. In this context, the aim of this study is to systematically map the research trends in wildfire management practices in Mediterranean-climate regions. A total of 201 wildfire management studies were analyzed and systematically mapped in terms of their: Year of publication; Place of study; Scientific outlet; Research area (Web of Science) or Research field (Scopus); Wildfire phase; Central research topic; Main objective of the study; Research methods; and Main conclusions or contributions. The results indicate that there is an increasing number of studies being developed on the topic (most from the last 10 years), but more than half of them are conducted in few Mediterranean countries (60% of the analyzed studies were conducted in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy or France), and more than 50% are focused on pre-fire issues, such as prevention and fuel management. In contrast, only 12% of the studies focused on “Economic modeling” or “Human factors and issues,” which suggests that the triple bottom line of the sustainability argument (social, environmental, and economic) is not being fully addressed by fire management research. More than one-fourth of the studies had their objective related to testing new approaches in fire or forest management, suggesting that new knowledge is being produced on the field. Nevertheless, the results indicate that most studies (about 84%) employed quantitative research methods, and only 3% of the studies used research methods that tackled social issues or addressed expert and practitioner’s knowledge. Perhaps this lack of multidisciplinary studies is one of the factors hindering more progress from being made in terms of reducing wildfire occurrences and their impacts.
Keywords: Management Mediterranean-climate regions, policy, wildfire.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6721056 Potential of Native Microorganisms in Tagus Estuary
Authors: Ana C. Sousa, Beatriz C. Santos, Fátima N. Serralha
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The Tagus estuary is heavily affected by industrial and urban activities, making bioremediation studies crucial for environmental preservation. Fuel contamination in the area can arise from various anthropogenic sources, such as oil spills from shipping, fuel storage and transfer operations, and industrial discharges. These pollutants can cause severe harm to the ecosystem and the organisms, including humans, that inhabit it. Nonetheless, there are always natural organisms with the ability to resist these pollutants and transform them into non-toxic or harmless substances, which defines the process of bioremediation. Exploring the microbial communities existing in soil and their capacity to break down hydrocarbons has the potential to enhance the development of more efficient bioremediation approaches. The aim of this investigation was to explore the existence of hydrocarbonoclastic microorganisms in six locations within the Tagus estuary, three on the north bank: Trancão River, Praia Fluvial do Cais das Colinas and Praia de Algés, and three on the south bank: Praia Fluvial de Alcochete, Praia Fluvial de Alburrica, and Praia da Trafaria. In all studied locations, native microorganisms of the genus Pseudomonas were identified. The bioremediation rate of common hydrocarbons like gasoline, hexane, and toluene was assessed using the redox indicator 2,6-dichlorophenolindophenol (DCPIP). Effective hydrocarbon-degrading bacterial strains were identified in all analyzed areas, despite adverse environmental conditions. The highest bioremediation rates were achieved for gasoline (68%) in Alburrica, hexane (65%) in Algés, and toluene (79%) in Algés. Generally, the bacteria demonstrated efficient degradation of hydrocarbons added to the culture medium, with higher rates of aerobic biodegradation of hydrocarbons observed. These findings underscore the necessity for further in situ studies to better comprehend the relationship between native microbial communities and the potential for pollutant degradation in soil.
Keywords: Biodegradability rate, hydrocarbonoclastic microorganisms, soil bioremediation, Tagus estuary.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1541055 Model Order Reduction of Linear Time Variant High Speed VLSI Interconnects using Frequency Shift Technique
Authors: J.V.R.Ravindra, M.B.Srinivas,
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Accurate modeling of high speed RLC interconnects has become a necessity to address signal integrity issues in current VLSI design. To accurately model a dispersive system of interconnects at higher frequencies; a full-wave analysis is required. However, conventional circuit simulation of interconnects with full wave models is extremely CPU expensive. We present an algorithm for reducing large VLSI circuits to much smaller ones with similar input-output behavior. A key feature of our method, called Frequency Shift Technique, is that it is capable of reducing linear time-varying systems. This enables it to capture frequency-translation and sampling behavior, important in communication subsystems such as mixers, RF components and switched-capacitor filters. Reduction is obtained by projecting the original system described by linear differential equations into a lower dimension. Experiments have been carried out using Cadence Design Simulator cwhich indicates that the proposed technique achieves more % reduction with less CPU time than the other model order reduction techniques existing in literature. We also present applications to RF circuit subsystems, obtaining size reductions and evaluation speedups of orders of magnitude with insignificant loss of accuracy.Keywords: Model order Reduction, RLC, crosstalk
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16511054 Levels of Some Antinutritional Factors in Tempeh Produced From Some Legumes and Jojobas Seeds
Authors: Ferial M. Abu-Salem, Rasha K. Mohamed, Ahmed Y. Gibriel, Nagwa M. H. Rasmy
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Three legumes i.e. soybean, kidney bean and mung bean, and jojoba seed as an oil seed were processed into tempeh, a fermented food. Changes in phytic acid, total phenols and trypsin inhibitor were monitored during the pretreatments (soaking, soaking– dehulling, washing and cooking) and fermentation with Rhizopus oligosporus. Soaking was found to reduce total phenol and trypsin inhibitor levels in soybean, kidney bean and mung bean. However, phytic acid was reduced by soaking in kidney bean and mung bean. Cooking was the most effective in reducing the activity of trypsin inhibitor. During fermentation, a slight increase in the level of trypsin inhibitor was noticed in soybean. Phytic acid and total phenols were decreased during fermentation in soybean, kidney bean but mung bean faild to form tempeh because the antifungal activity of herein a protein in mung bean, which exerts both chitinase activity and antifungal activity against a variety of fungal species. On the other hand, solid- state fermentation of jojoba seeds was not effective in reducing their content from cyanogenic glycosides (simmondsin).
Keywords: Antinutritional factors, cyanogenic glycosides (Simmondsin), tempeh.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 35551053 The Effect Particle Velocity on the Thickness of Thermally Sprayed Coatings
Authors: M. Jalali Azizpour, H. Mohammadi Majd
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In this paper, the effect of WC-12Co particle velocity in HVOF thermal spraying process on the coating thickness has been studied. The statistical results show that the spray distance and oxygen-to-fuel ratio are more effective factors on particle characterization and thickness of HVOF thermal spraying coatings. Spray Watch diagnostic system, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction and thickness measuring system were used for this purpose.
Keywords: Grinding, HVOF, Thermal spray, WC-Co.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23631052 Renewable Energy Trends Analysis: A Patents Study
Authors: Sepulveda Juan
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This article explains the elements and considerations taken into account when implementing and applying patent evaluation and scientometric study in the identifications of technology trends, and the tools that led to the implementation of a software application for patent revision. Univariate analysis helped recognize the technological leaders in the field of energy, and steered the way for a multivariate analysis of this sample, which allowed for a graphical description of the techniques of mature technologies, as well as the detection of emerging technologies. This article ends with a validation of the methodology as applied to the case of fuel cells.Keywords: Energy, technology mapping, patents.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21861051 Selected Ethnomedicinal Plants of Northern Surigao Del Sur: Their Antioxidant Activities in Terms of Total Phenolics, ABTS Radical Cation Decolorization Power, and Ferric Reducing Ability
Authors: Gemma A. Gruyal
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Plants can contain a wide variety of substances with antioxidative properties which are associated with important health benefits. These positive health effects are of great importance at a time when the environment is laden with many toxic substances. Five selected herbal plants namely, Mimosa pudica, Phyllanthus niruri, Ceiba pentandra, Eleusine polydactyla and Trema amboinensi, were chosen for the experiment to investigate their total phenolics content and antioxidant activities using ABTS radical cation decolorization power, and ferric reducing antioxidant power. The total phenolic content of each herbal plants ranges from 0.84 to 42.59 mg gallic acid equivalent/g. The antioxidant activity in the ABTS radical cation decolorization power varies from 0.005 to 0.362 mg trolox equivalent/g and the FRAP ranges from 0.30 to 28.42 mg gallic acid equivalent/g. Among the five medicinal plants, Mimosa pudica has been an excellent performer in terms of the 3 parameters measured; it is followed by Phyllanthus niruri. The 5 herbal plants do not have equivalent antioxidant power. The relative high values for M. pudica and P. niruri supports the medicinal value of both plants. The total phenolics, ABTS and FRAP correlate strongly with one another.Keywords: ABTS, FRAP, leaf extracts, phenol.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24781050 The Effect of Reducing Superimposed Dead Load on the Lateral Seismic Deformations of Structures
Authors: H. Alnajajra, A. Touqan, M. Dwaikat
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The vast majority of the Middle East countries are prone to earthquakes. Despite that and from a seismic hazard point of view, the higher values of the superimposed dead load intensity of partitions and wearing materials of the constructed reinforced concrete slabs in these countries can increase the earthquake vulnerability of the structures. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of reducing superimposed dead load on the lateral seismic deformations of structures, the inter-story drifts and the seismic pounding damages. The study utilizes a group of three reinforced concrete structures at three different site conditions. These structures are assumed to be constructed in Nablus city of Palestine, and having superimposed dead load value as 1 kN/m2, 3 kN/m2, and 5 kN/m2, respectively. SAP2000 program, Version 18.1.1, is used to perform the response spectrum analysis to obtain the potential lateral seismic deformations of the studied models. Amazingly, the study points that, at the same site, superimposed dead load has a minor effect on the lateral deflections of the models. This, however, promotes the hypothesis that buildings failed during earthquakes mainly because they were not designed appropriately against gravity loads.
Keywords: Gravity loads, inter-story drifts, lateral seismic deformations, reinforced concrete slabs, response spectrum method, SAP2000, seismic design, seismic pounding, superimposed dead load.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13681049 Biological Effects of a Carbohydrate-Binding Protein from an Annelid, Perinereis nuntia Against Human and Phytopathogenic Microorganisms
Authors: Sarkar M. A. Kawsar, Sarkar M. A. Mamun, Md S. Rahman, Hidetaro Yasumitsu, Yasuhiro Ozeki
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Lectins have a good scope in current clinical microbiology research. In the present study evaluated the antimicrobial activities of a D-galactose binding lectin (PnL) was purified from the annelid, Perinereis nuntia (polychaeta) by affinity chromatography. The molecular mass of the lectin was determined to be 32 kDa as a single polypeptide by SDS-PAGE under both reducing and non-reducing conditions. The hemagglutinating activity of the PnL showed against trypsinized and glutaraldehyde-fixed human erythrocytes was specifically inhibited by D-Gal, GalNAc, Galβ1-4Glc and Galα1-6Glc. PnL was evaluated for in vitro antibacterial screening studies against 11 gram-positive and gram-negative microorganisms. From the screening results, it was revealed that PnL exhibited significant antibacterial activity against gram-positive bacteria. Bacillus megaterium showed the highest growth inhibition by the lectin (250 μg/disc). However, PnL did not inhibit the growth of gram-negative bacteria such as Vibrio cholerae and Pseudomonas sp. PnL was also examined for in vitro antifungal activity against six fungal phytopathogens. PnL (100 μg/mL) inhibited the mycelial growth of Alternaria alternata (24.4%). These results indicate that future findings of lectin applications obtained from annelids may be of importance to life sciences.Keywords: Perinereis nuntia, Lectin, Inhibition zone, Mycelial growth.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19761048 Analysis of the Black Sea Gas Hydrates
Authors: Sukru Merey, Caglar Sinayuc
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Gas hydrate deposits which are found in deep ocean sediments and in permafrost regions are supposed to be a fossil fuel reserve for the future. The Black Sea is also considered rich in terms of gas hydrates. It abundantly contains gas hydrates as methane (CH4~80 to 99.9%) source. In this study, by using the literature, seismic and other data of the Black Sea such as salinity, porosity of the sediments, common gas type, temperature distribution and pressure gradient, the optimum gas production method for the Black Sea gas hydrates was selected as mainly depressurization method. Numerical simulations were run to analyze gas production from gas hydrate deposited in turbidites in the Black Sea by depressurization.Keywords: Black Sea hydrates, depressurization, turbidites, HydrateResSim.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13561047 A Mathematical Investigation of the Turkevich Organizer Theory in the Citrate Method for the Synthesis of Gold Nanoparticles
Authors: Emmanuel Agunloye, Asterios Gavriilidis, Luca Mazzei
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Gold nanoparticles are commonly synthesized by reducing chloroauric acid with sodium citrate. This method, referred to as the citrate method, can produce spherical gold nanoparticles (NPs) in the size range 10-150 nm. Gold NPs of this size are useful in many applications. However, the NPs are usually polydisperse and irreproducible. A better understanding of the synthesis mechanisms is thus required. This work thoroughly investigated the only model that describes the synthesis. This model combines mass and population balance equations, describing the NPs synthesis through a sequence of chemical reactions. Chloroauric acid reacts with sodium citrate to form aurous chloride and dicarboxy acetone. The latter organizes aurous chloride in a nucleation step and concurrently degrades into acetone. The unconsumed precursor then grows the formed nuclei. However, depending on the pH, both the precursor and the reducing agent react differently thus affecting the synthesis. In this work, we investigated the model for different conditions of pH, temperature and initial reactant concentrations. To solve the model, we used Parsival, a commercial numerical code, whilst to test it, we considered various conditions studied experimentally by different researchers, for which results are available in the literature. The model poorly predicted the experimental data. We believe that this is because the model does not account for the acid-base properties of both chloroauric acid and sodium citrate.
Keywords: Gold nanoparticles, Citrate method, Turkevich organizer theory, population balance modelling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10001046 An Appraisal of Coal Fly Ash Soil Amendment Technology (FASAT) of Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR)
Authors: L.C. Ram, R.E. Masto, Smriti Singh, R.C. Tripathi, S.K. Jha, N.K. Srivastava, A.K. Sinha, V.A. Selvi, A. Sinha
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Coal will continue to be the predominant source of global energy for coming several decades. The huge generation of fly ash (FA) from combustion of coal in thermal power plants (TPPs) is apprehended to pose the concerns of its disposal and utilization. FA application based on its typical characteristics as soil ameliorant for agriculture and forestry is the potential area, and hence the global attempt. The inferences drawn suffer from the variations of ash characteristics, soil types, and agro-climatic conditions; thereby correlating the effects of ash between various plant species and soil types is difficult. Indian FAs have low bulk density, high water holding capacity and porosity, rich silt-sized particles, alkaline nature, negligible solubility, and reasonable plant nutrients. Findings of the demonstrations trials for more than two decades from lab/pot to field scale long-term experiments are developed as FA soil amendment technology (FASAT) by Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR), Dhanbad. Performance of different crops and plant species in cultivable and problematic soils, are encouraging, eco-friendly, and being adopted by the farmers. FA application includes ash alone and in combination with inorganic/organic amendments; combination treatments including bio-solids perform better than FA alone. Optimum dose being up to 100 t/ha for cultivable land and up to/ or above 200 t/ha of FA for waste/degraded land/mine refuse, depending on the characteristics of ash and soil. The elemental toxicity in Indian FA is usually not of much concern owing to alkaline ashes, oxide forms of elements, and elemental concentration within the threshold limits for soil application. Combating toxicity, if any, is possible through combination treatments with organic materials and phytoremediation. Government initiatives through extension programme involving farmers and ash generating organizations need to be acceleratedKeywords: Fly ash, soil quality, CIMFR, FASAT, agriculture, forestry, toxicity, remediation
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 30631045 Spectral Amplitude Coding Optical CDMA: Performance Analysis of PIIN Reduction Using VC Code Family
Authors: Hassan Yousif Ahmed, Ibrahima Faye, N.M.Saad, S.A. Aljined
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Multi-user interference (MUI) is the main reason of system deterioration in the Spectral Amplitude Coding Optical Code Division Multiple Access (SAC-OCDMA) system. MUI increases with the number of simultaneous users, resulting into higher probability bit rate and limits the maximum number of simultaneous users. On the other hand, Phase induced intensity noise (PIIN) problem which is originated from spontaneous emission of broad band source from MUI severely limits the system performance should be addressed as well. Since the MUI is caused by the interference of simultaneous users, reducing the MUI value as small as possible is desirable. In this paper, an extensive study for the system performance specified by MUI and PIIN reducing is examined. Vectors Combinatorial (VC) codes families are adopted as a signature sequence for the performance analysis and a comparison with reported codes is performed. The results show that, when the received power increases, the PIIN noise for all the codes increases linearly. The results also show that the effect of PIIN can be minimized by increasing the code weight leads to preserve adequate signal to noise ratio over bit error probability. A comparison study between the proposed code and the existing codes such as Modified frequency hopping (MFH), Modified Quadratic- Congruence (MQC) has been carried out.
Keywords: FBG, MUI, PIIN, SAC-OCDMA, VCC.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22091044 Analysis of Construction Waste Generation and Its Effect in a Construction Site
Authors: R. K. D. G. Kaluarachchi
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The generation of solid waste and its effective management are debated topics in Sri Lanka as well as in the global environment. It was estimated that the most of the waste generated in global was originated from construction and demolition of buildings. Thus, the proportion of construction waste in solid waste generation cannot be underestimated. The construction waste, which is the by-product generated and removed from work sites is collected in direct and indirect processes. Hence, the objectives of this research are to identify the proportion of construction waste which can be reused and identify the methods to reduce the waste generation without reducing the quality of the process. A 6-storey building construction site was selected for this research. The site was divided into six zones depending on the process. Ten waste materials were identified by considering the adverse effects on safety and health of people and the economic value of them. The generated construction waste in each zone was recorded per week for a period of five months. The data revealed that sand, cement, wood used for form work and rusted steel rods were the generated waste which has higher economic value in all zones. Structured interviews were conducted to gather information on how the materials are categorized as waste and the capability of reducing, reusing and recycling the waste. It was identified that waste is generated in following processes; ineffective storage of material for a longer time and improper handling of material during the work process. Further, the alteration of scheduled activities of construction work also yielded more waste. Finally, a proper management of construction waste is suggested to reduce and reuse waste.
Keywords: Construction waste, effective management, reduce, reuse.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12751043 Successful Straw Combustion Technology in Zluticka Heating Plant
Authors: P. Volakova, M. Mika, V. Verner, B. Klapste, O. Jankovsky
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We successfully developed and tested a new separation layer solving problems with unmanageable deposits inside the boilers of Zluticka Heating Plant. The deposits are mainly created by glass-forming melts. We plotted straw ash compositions in K2OCaO- SiO2 phase diagram and illustrated that they are in the area of low-melting eutectic points. To prevent the melting of ash and the formation of deposits, we modified ash compositions by injecting additives into biomass fuel, and thus effectively suppressed deposits in a burner.Keywords: Biomass, straw, combustion, deposit, heat, additives
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14871042 Analysis of Possible Causes of Fukushima Disaster
Authors: Abid Hossain Khan, Syam Hasan, M. A. R. Sarkar
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Fukushima disaster is one of the most publicly exposed accidents in a nuclear facility which has changed the outlook of people towards nuclear power. Some have used it as an example to establish nuclear energy as an unsafe source, while others have tried to find the real reasons behind this accident. Many papers have tried to shed light on the possible causes, some of which are purely based on assumptions while others rely on rigorous data analysis. To our best knowledge, none of the works can say with absolute certainty that there is a single prominent reason that has paved the way to this unexpected incident. This paper attempts to compile all the apparent reasons behind Fukushima disaster and tries to analyze and identify the most likely one.
Keywords: Fuel meltdown, Fukushima disaster, manmade calamity, nuclear facility, tsunami.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21791041 An Algorithm Proposed for FIR Filter Coefficients Representation
Authors: Mohamed Al Mahdi Eshtawie, Masuri Bin Othman
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Finite impulse response (FIR) filters have the advantage of linear phase, guaranteed stability, fewer finite precision errors, and efficient implementation. In contrast, they have a major disadvantage of high order need (more coefficients) than IIR counterpart with comparable performance. The high order demand imposes more hardware requirements, arithmetic operations, area usage, and power consumption when designing and fabricating the filter. Therefore, minimizing or reducing these parameters, is a major goal or target in digital filter design task. This paper presents an algorithm proposed for modifying values and the number of non-zero coefficients used to represent the FIR digital pulse shaping filter response. With this algorithm, the FIR filter frequency and phase response can be represented with a minimum number of non-zero coefficients. Therefore, reducing the arithmetic complexity needed to get the filter output. Consequently, the system characteristic i.e. power consumption, area usage, and processing time are also reduced. The proposed algorithm is more powerful when integrated with multiplierless algorithms such as distributed arithmetic (DA) in designing high order digital FIR filters. Here the DA usage eliminates the need for multipliers when implementing the multiply and accumulate unit (MAC) and the proposed algorithm will reduce the number of adders and addition operations needed through the minimization of the non-zero values coefficients to get the filter output.
Keywords: Pulse shaping Filter, Distributed Arithmetic, Optimization algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 31721040 Residual Stresses in Thermally Sprayed Gas Turbine Components
Authors: M.Jalali Azizpour, S.Norouzi, D.Sajedipour, H.Mohammadi Majd
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In this paper, the residual stress of thermal spray coatings in gas turbine component by curvature method has been studied. The samples and shaft were coated by hard WC-12Co cermets using high velocity oxy fuel (HVOF) after preparation in same conditions. The curvature of coated samples was measured by using of coordinate measurement machine (CMM). The metallurgical and Tribological studies has been made on the coated shaft using optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)Keywords: Thermal spray, Residual stress, Wear mechanism, HVOF, Gas compressor shafts
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16901039 Modeling and Simulation of a Hybrid Scooter
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This paper presents a hybrid electric scooter model developed and simulated using Matlab/Simulink. This hybrid scooter modeled has a parallel hybrid structure. The main propulsion units consist of a two stroke internal combustion engine and a hub motor attached to the front wheel of the scooter. The methodology used to optimize the energy and fuel consumption of the hybrid electric scooter is the multi-mode approach. Various case studies were presented to check the model and were compared to the literatures. Results shown that the model developed was feasible and valuable.
Keywords: Hybrid electric scooters, modeling and simulation, hybrid scooter energy management.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 33441038 Calculation and Comparison of a Turbofan Engine Performance Parameters with Various Definitions
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In this paper, some performance parameters of a selected turbofan engine (JT9D) are analyzed. The engine is a high bypass turbofan engine which powers a wide-body aircraft and it produces 206 kN thrust force (thrust/weight ratio is 5.4). The objective parameters for the engine include calculation of power, specific fuel consumption, specific thrust, engine propulsive, thermal and overall efficiencies according to the various definitions given in the literature. Furthermore, in the case study, wasted energy from the exhaust is calculated at the maximum power setting (i.e. take off phase) for the engine.
Keywords: Turbofan, power, efficiency, trust.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3987