Search results for: Dimensionality reduction

Authors: S. P. Singh

Abstract:

This paper measures technical and scale efficiencies of 40 Indian sugar companies for the period from 2004-05 to 2013-14. The efficiencies are estimated through input-oriented DEA models using one output variable—value of output (VOP) and five input variables—capital cost (CA), employee cost (EMP), raw material (RW), energy & fuel (E&F) and other manufacturing expenses (OME). The sugar companies are classified into integrated and non-integrated categories to know which one achieves higher level of efficiency. Sources of inefficiency in the industry are identified through decomposing the overall technical efficiency (TE) into pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE). The paper also estimates input-reduction targets for relatively inefficient companies and suggests measures to improve their efficiency level. The findings reveal that the TE does not evince any trend rather it shows fluctuations across years, largely due to erratic and cyclical pattern of sugar production. Further, technical inefficiency in the industry seems to be driven more by the managerial inefficiency than the scale inefficiency, which implies that TE can be improved through better conversion of inputs into output.

Keywords: Sugar industry, companies, technical efficiency, data envelopment analysis, targets.

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Authors: S. Fawzia, A. Nasir, T. Fatima

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The demands of taller structures are becoming imperative almost everywhere in the world in addition to the challenges of material and labor cost, project time line etc. This paper conducted a study keeping in view the challenging nature of high-rise construction with no generic rules for deflection minimizations and frequency control. The effects of cyclonic wind and provision of outriggers on 28-storey, 42-storey and 57-storey are examined in this paper and certain conclusions are made which would pave way for researchers to conduct further study in this particular area of civil engineering. The results show that plan dimensions have vital impacts on structural heights. Increase of height while keeping the plan dimensions same, leads to the reduction in the lateral rigidity. To achieve required stiffness increase of bracings sizes as well as introduction of additional lateral resisting system such as belt truss and outriggers is required.

Keywords: Cyclonic wind regions, dynamic wind loads, Alongwind effects, Crosswind response, Fundamental frequency of vibration.

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Authors: Imana Shahrin Tania, Mohammad Ali

Abstract:

The present study reports the synthesis, characterization and application of nano-sized zinc-oxide (ZnO) particles on a cotton fabric surface. The aim of the investigations is to impart the antimicrobial activity on textile cloth. Nanoparticle is synthesized by wet chemical method from zinc sulphate and sodium hydroxide. SEM (scanning electron micrograph) images are taken to demonstrate the surface morphology of nanoparticles. XRD analysis is done to determine the crystal size of the nanoparticle. With the conformation of nanoformation, the cotton woven fabric is treated with ZnO nanoparticle by mechanical thermo-fixation (pad-dry-cure) technique. To increase the wash durability of nano treated fabric, an acrylic binder is used as a fixing agent. The treated fabric shows up to 90% bacterial reduction for S. aureus (Staphylococcus aureus) and 87% for E. coli (Escherichia coli) which is appreciable for bacteria protective clothing.

Keywords: Nanoparticle, zinc oxide, cotton fabric, antibacterial activity, binder.

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Authors: H. M. El-Zomor, M. Hany

Abstract:

Recycling of aluminum beverage cans is an important issue due to its economic and environmental effect. One of the significant factors in aluminum cans recycling process is the transportation cost from the landfill space. An automatic compression baler (ACB) machine has been designed and built to densify the aluminum beverage cans. It has been constructed using numerous fabricated components. Two types of control methodology have been introduced in this ACB machine to achieve its goal. The first is a semi-automatic system, and the second is a mechatronic system by using a Programmable Logic Control (PLC). The effect of single and double pre-compression for the beverage cans have been evaluated by using the PLC control. Comparisons have been performed between the two types of control methodologies by operating this ACB machine in different working conditions. The double pre-compression in PLC control proves that there is an enhancement in the ACB performance by 133% greater than the direct compression in the semi-automatic control. In addition, the percentage of the reduction ratio in volume reaches 77%, and the compaction ratio reaches about four times of the initial volume.

Keywords: Aluminum can recycling, Fully automatic machine, Hydraulic system control, Multi-compression.

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Authors: R. Ziaie Moayed, H. Keshavarz Hedayati

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Over recent years, due to increased population and increased waste production, groundwater protection has become more important, therefore, designing engineered barrier systems such as landfill liners to prevent the entry of leachate into groundwater should be done with greater accuracy. These measures generally involve the application of low permeability soils such as clays. Bentonite is a natural clay with low permeability which makes it a suitable soil for using in liners. Also zeolite with high cation exchange capacity can help to reduce of hazardous materials risk. Bentonite expands when wet, absorbing as much as several times its dry mass in water. This property may effect on some structural properties of soil such as shear strength. In present study, shear strength parameters are determined by both leachates polluted and not polluted bentonite-amended zeolite soil with mixing rates (B/Z) of 5%-10% and 20% with unconfined compression test to obtain the differences. It is shown that leachate presence causes reduction in resistance in general.

Keywords: Bentonite, zeolite, leachate, shear strength parameters, unconfined compression tests.

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Authors: Lae-Jeong Park, Jung-Ho Moon

Abstract:

People detection from images has a variety of applications such as video surveillance and driver assistance system, but is still a challenging task and more difficult in crowded environments such as shopping malls in which occlusion of lower parts of human body often occurs. Lack of the full-body information requires more effective features than common features such as HOG. In this paper, new features are introduced that exploits global self-symmetry (GSS) characteristic in head-shoulder patterns. The features encode the similarity or difference of color histograms and oriented gradient histograms between two vertically symmetric blocks. The domain-specific features are rapid to compute from the integral images in Viola-Jones cascade-of-rejecters framework. The proposed features are evaluated with our own head-shoulder dataset that, in part, consists of a well-known INRIA pedestrian dataset. Experimental results show that the GSS features are effective in reduction of false alarmsmarginally and the gradient GSS features are preferred more often than the color GSS ones in the feature selection.

Keywords: Pedestrian detection, cascade of rejecters, feature extraction, self-symmetry, HOG.

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Authors: Christopher C. Enweremadu, Hilary L. Rutto

Abstract:

Vapour recompression system has been used to enhance reduction in energy consumption and improvement in energy effectiveness of distillation columns. However, the effects of certain parameters have not been taken into consideration. One of such parameters is the column heat loss which has either been assumed to be a certain percent of reboiler heat transfer or negligible. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the heat loss from an ethanol-water vapour recompression distillation column with pressure increase across the compressor (VRCAS) and compare the results obtained and its effect on some parameters in similar system (VRCCS) where the column heat loss has been assumed or neglected. Results show that the heat loss evaluated was higher when compared with that obtained for the column VRCCS. The results also showed that increase in heat loss could have significant effect on the total energy consumption, reboiler heat transfer, the number of trays and energy effectiveness of the column.

Keywords: Compressor, distillation column, heat loss, vapourrecompression.

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Authors: Gomaa N. Abdel-Rahman, Nadia R. A. Nassar, Yehia A. Heikal, Mahmoud A. M. Abou-Donia, Mohamed M. Naguib, Mohamed Fadel

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Cane molasses is used as a raw material for the production of baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) in Egypt. The high levels of heavy metals in molasses cause a critical problem during fermentation and cause various kinds of technological difficulties (yield and quality of yeast become lower). The aim of the present study was to determine heavy metal concentrations (cadmium, nickel, lead, and copper) in crude and treated molasses obtained from the storage tanks of the baker’s yeast factory through four seasons. Also, the effect of crude molasses treatment by different methods (at laboratory scale) on heavy metals reduction and its comparison with factory treated molasses were conducted. The molasses samples obtained at autumn season had the highest values of all the studied heavy metals. The molasses treated by cation exchange resin then sulfuric acid had the lowest concentrations of heavy metals compared with other treatments.

Keywords: Molasses, baker’s yeast, heavy metals, treatment.

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Authors: N. K. Srivastava, M. K. Jha, I. D. Mall, Davinder Singh

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The treatment of the industrial wastewater can be particularly difficult in the presence of toxic compounds. Excessive concentration of Chromium in soluble form is toxic to a wide variety of living organisms. Biological removal of heavy metals using natural and genetically engineered microorganisms has aroused great interest because of its lower impact on the environment. Ralston metallidurans, formerly known as Alcaligenes eutrophus is a LProteobacterium colonizing industrial wastewater with a high content of heavy metals. Tris-buffered mineral salt medium was used for growing Alcaligenes eutrophus AE104 (pEBZ141). The cells were cultivated for 18 h at 30 oC in Tris-buffered mineral salt medium containing 3 mM disodium sulphate and 46 mM sodium gluconate as the carbon source. The cells were harvested by centrifugation, washed, and suspended in 10 mM Tris HCl, pH 7.0, containing 46 mM sodium gluconate, and 5 mM Chromium. Interaction among induction of chr resistance determinant, and chromate reduction have been demonstrated. Results of this study show that the above bacteria can be very useful for bioremediation of chromium from industrial wastewater.

Keywords: Chromium, Genetic Engineering, IndustrialWastewater, Plasmid

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Authors: Ji-Hye Kim, Sung-Gaun Kim

Abstract:

Electro-hydraulic power steering (EHPS) system for the fuel rate reduction and steering feel improvement is comprised of ECU including the logic which controls the steering system and BL DC motor and produces the best suited cornering force, BLDC motor, high pressure pump integrated module and basic oil-hydraulic circuit of the commercial HPS system. Electro-hydraulic system can be studied in two ways such as experimental and computer simulation. To get accurate results in experimental study of EHPS system, the real boundary management is necessary which is difficult task. And the accuracy of the experimental results depends on the preparation of the experimental setup and accuracy of the data collection. The computer simulation gives accurate and reliable results if the simulation is carried out considering proper boundary conditions. So, in this paper, each component of EHPS was modeled, and the model-based analysis and control logic was designed by using AMESim

Keywords: Power steering system, Electro-Hydraulic power steering (EHPS) system, Modeling of EHPS system, Analysis modeling.

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Authors: Michael Amberg, Dipl. Kfm. Johannes C. Panitz

Abstract:

Compliance requires an effective communication within an enterprise as well as towards a company-s external environment. This requirement commences with the implementation of compliance within large scale compliance projects and still persists in the compliance reporting within standard operations. On the one hand the understanding of compliance necessities within the organization is promoted. On the other hand reduction of asymmetric information with compliance stakeholders is achieved. To reach this goal, a central reporting must provide a consolidated view of different compliance efforts- statuses. A concept which could be adapted for this purpose is the balanced scorecard by Kaplan / Norton. This concept has not been analyzed in detail concerning its adequacy for a holistic compliance reporting starting in compliance projects until later usage in regularly compliance operations. At first, this paper evaluates if a holistic compliance reporting can be designed by using the balanced scorecard concept. The current status of compliance reporting clearly shows that scorecards are generally accepted as a compliance reporting tool and are already used for corporate governance reporting. Additional specialized compliance IT - solutions exist in the market. After the scorecard-s adequacy is thoroughly examined and proofed, an example strategy map as the basis to derive a compliance balanced scorecard is defined. This definition answers the question on proceeding in designing a compliance reporting tool.

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard, Compliance, ComplianceReporting, Compliance Scorecard.

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Authors: Samira Haghshenaskashani, Hadi Pasdarshahri

Abstract:

One of the potential and effective ways of storing thermal energy in buildings is the integration of brick with phase change materials (PCMs). This paper presents a two-dimensional model for simulating and analyzing of PCM in order to minimize energy consumption in the buildings. The numerical approach has been used with the real weather data of a selected city of Iran (Tehran). Two kinds of brick integrated PCM are investigated and compared base on outdoor weather conditions and the amount of energy consumption. The results show a significant reduction in maximum entering heat flux to building about 32.8% depending on PCM quantity. The results are analyzed by various temperature contour plots. The contour plots illustrated the time dependent mechanism of entering heat flux for a brick integrated with PCM. Further analysis is developed to investigate the effect of PCM location on the inlet heat flux. The results demonstrated that to achieve maximum performance of PCM it is better to locate PCM near the outdoor.

Keywords: Building, Energy Storage, PCM, Phase Change Material

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Authors: Young Sik Kim, Tae Kwon Ha

Abstract:

Effect of Zn addition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg-Zn alloys with Zn contents from 6 to 10 weight percent was investigated in this study. Through calculation of phase equilibria of Mg-Zn alloys, carried out by using FactSage® and FTLite database, solution treatment temperature was decided as temperatures from 300 to 400oC, where supersaturated solid solution can be obtained. Solid solution treatment of Mg-Zn alloys was successfully conducted at 380oC and supersaturated microstructure with all beta phase resolved into matrix was obtained. After solution treatment, hot rolling was successfully conducted by reduction of 60%. Compression and tension tests were carried out at room temperature on the samples as-cast, solution treated, hot-rolled and recrystallized after rolling. After solid solution treatment, each alloy was annealed at temperatures of 180 and 200oC for time intervals from 1 min to 48 hrs and hardness of each condition was measured by micro-Vickers method. Peak aging conditions were deduced as at the temperature of 200oC for 10 hrs. By addition of Zn by 10 weight percent, hardness and strength were enhanced.

Keywords: Mg-Zn alloy, Heat treatment, Microstructure, Mechanical properties, Hardness.

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Authors: Yashvir Singh

Abstract:

Around the globe, there is demand for the development of bio-based lubricant which will be biodegradable, non -toxic and environmental friendly. This paper outlines the friction and wear characteristics of Pongamia oil (PO) contaminated bio-lubricant by using pin-on-disc tribometer. To formulate the bio-lubricants, PO was blended in the ratios 15, 30 and 50% by volume with the base lubricant SAE 20 W 40. Tribological characteristics of these blends were carried out at 3.8 m/s sliding velocity and loads applied were 50, 100, 150 N. Experimental results showed that the lubrication regime that occurred during the test was boundary lubrication while the main wear mechanisms were abrasive and the adhesive wear. During testing, the lowest wear was found with the addition of 15% PO, and above this contamination, the wear rate was increased considerably. With increase in load, viscosity of all the bio-lubricants increases and meets the ISO VG 100 requirement at 40 ^oC except PB 50. The addition of PO in the base lubricant acted as a very good lubricant additive which reduced the friction and wear scar diameter during the test. It has been concluded that the PB 15 can act as an alternative lubricant to increase the mechanical efficiency at 3.8 m/s sliding velocity and contribute in reduction of dependence on the petroleum based products.

Keywords: Pongamia oil, sliding velocity, load, friction, wear.

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Authors: Predrag B. Petrović

Abstract:

The paper deals with the estimation of amplitude and phase of an analogue multi-harmonic band-limited signal from irregularly spaced sampling values. To this end, assuming the signal fundamental frequency is known in advance (i.e., estimated at an independent stage), a complexity-reduced algorithm for signal reconstruction in time domain is proposed. The reduction in complexity is achieved owing to completely new analytical and summarized expressions that enable a quick estimation at a low numerical error. The proposed algorithm for the calculation of the unknown parameters requires O((2M+1)2) flops, while the straightforward solution of the obtained equations takes O((2M+1)3) flops (M is the number of the harmonic components). It is applied in signal reconstruction, spectral estimation, system identification, as well as in other important signal processing problems. The proposed method of processing can be used for precise RMS measurements (for power and energy) of a periodic signal based on the presented signal reconstruction. The paper investigates the errors related to the signal parameter estimation, and there is a computer simulation that demonstrates the accuracy of these algorithms.

Keywords: Band-limited signals, Fourier coefficient estimation, analytical solutions, signal reconstruction, time.

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Authors: Frantisek Bozek, Pavel Budinsky, Ignac Hoza, Alexandr Bozek, Magdalena Naplavova

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A cleaner production project was implemented in a bakery. The project is based on the substitution of the best available technique for an obsolete leaven production technology. The new technology enables production of durable, high-quality leavens. Moreover, 25% of flour as the original raw material can be replaced by pastry from the previous day production which has not been sold. That pastry was previously disposed in a waste incineration plant. Besides the environmental benefits resulting from less waste, lower consumption of energy, reduction of sewage waters quantity and floury dustiness there are also significant economic benefits. Payback period of investment was calculated with help of static method of financial analysis about 2.6 years, using dynamic method 3.5 years and an internal rate of return more than 29%. The supposed annual average profit after taxationin the second year of operation was incompliance with the real profit.

Keywords: Bakery, best available technology, cleaner production, costs, economic benefit, efficiency, energy, environmental benefit, investment, savings.

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Authors: Abu Rayhan Md. Ali, Nidul Ch. Ghosh, Tanvir-E-Alam

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The effect of autofrettage process in strain hardened thick-walled pressure vessels has been investigated theoretically by finite element modeling. Equivalent von Mises stress is used as yield criterion to evaluate the optimum autofrettage pressure and the optimum radius of elastic-plastic junction. It has been observed that the optimum autofrettage pressure increases along with the working pressure. For two different working pressures, the effect of the ratio of outer to inner radius (b/a=k) value on the optimum autofrettage pressure is also noticed. The Optimum autofrettage pressure solely depends on K value rather than on the inner or outer radius. Furthermore, percentage reduction of von Mises stresses is compared for different working pressures and different k values. Maximum von Mises stress developed at different autofrettage pressure is equated for elastic perfectly plastic and elastic-plastic material with different slope of strain hardening segment. Cylinder material having higher slope of strain hardening segment provides better benedictions in the autofrettage process.

Keywords: Autofrettage, elastic plastic junction, pressure vessel, von Mises stress.

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Authors: Paula Ferreira, Madalena Araújo, M.E.J. O’Kelly

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Combining energy efficiency with renewable energy sources constitutes a key strategy for a sustainable future. The wind power sector stands out as a fundamental element for the achievement of the European renewable objectives and Portugal is no exception to the increase of the wind energy for the electricity generation. This work proposes an optimization model for the long range electricity power planning in a system similar to the Portuguese one, where the expected impacts of the increasing installed wind power on the operating performance of thermal power plants are taken into account. The main results indicate that the increasing penetration of wind power in the electricity system will have significant effects on the combined cycle gas power plants operation and on the theoretically expected cost reduction and environmental gains. This research demonstrated the need to address the impact that energy sources with variable output may have, not only on the short-term operational planning, but especially on the medium to long range planning activities, in order to meet the strategic objectives for the energy sector.

Keywords: Wind power, electricity planning model, cost, emissions.

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Authors: M. Bahgat, H. A. Hanafy, S. Lakdawala

Abstract:

Clustering phenomenon of pellets was observed frequently in shaft processes operating at higher temperatures. Clustering is a result of the growth of fibrous iron precipitates (iron whiskers) that become hooked to each other and finally become crystallized during the initial stages of metallization. If the pellet clustering is pronounced, sometimes leads to blocking inside the furnace and forced shutdown takes place. This work clarifies further the relation between metallic iron whisker growth and iron ore mineralogy. Various pellet sizes (6 – 12.0 & +12.0 mm) from three different ores (A, B & C) were (completely and partially) reduced at 985 ^oC with H₂/CO gas mixture using thermos-gravimetric technique. It was found that reducibility increases by decreasing the iron ore pellet’s size. Ore (A) has the highest reducibility than ore (B) and ore (C). Increasing the iron ore pellet’s size leads to increase the probability of metallic iron whisker formation. Ore (A) has the highest tendency for metallic iron whisker formation than ore (B) and ore (C). The reduction reactions for all iron ores A, B and C are mainly controlled by diffusion reaction mechanism.

Keywords: Shaft furnace, cluster, metallic iron whisker, mineralogy, ferrous metallurgy.

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Authors: N. Phanthuna V. Phupha N. Rugthaicharoencheep, S. Lerdwanittip

Abstract:

This paper presents an optimization technique to economic load dispatch (ELD) problems with considering the daily load patterns and generator constraints using a particle swarm optimization (PSO). The objective is to minimize the fuel cost. The optimization problem is subject to system constraints consisting of power balance and generation output of each units. The application of a constriction factor into PSO is a useful strategy to ensure convergence of the particle swarm algorithm. The proposed method is able to determine, the output power generation for all of the power generation units, so that the total constraint cost function is minimized. The performance of the developed methodology is demonstrated by case studies in test system of fifteen-generation units. The results show that the proposed algorithm scan give the minimum total cost of generation while satisfying all the constraints and benefiting greatly from saving in power loss reduction

Keywords: Particle Swarm Optimization, Economic Load Dispatch, Generator Constraints.

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Authors: Nattapol Poomsa-ad, Lamul Wiset

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Pre-germinated parboiled brown rice or Khao hang (in Thai) is paddy which undergoing the processes of soaking, steaming, drying and dehusking to obtain the edible form for consumption. The objectives of this research were to study the kinetic of pre-germinated parboiled brown rice drying using fluidization technique and to study the properties of pre-germinated parboiled brown rice after drying. The dryings were performed at the different temperatures of 110, 120 and 130 oC at the bed depth of 2 cm with the air velocity of 1.98 m/s. The results found that the higher drying temperature led to the faster moisture reduction. After drying until the moisture content of pre-germinated parboiled brown rice was lower than 14%wet basis, samples were taken to determine various qualities such as percentage of head rice and L* a* b* color values. The shade drying was used as a control. The results found that the higher drying temperature resulted in the decrease of head rice percentage. For the color assessment, the trend of L* and a* values was increased with the drying temperature, while the b* value was not significantly difference (p › 0.05) by drying temperatures. However, the b value of drying by fluidized bed dryer was higher than the control.

Keywords: Brown rice, dehydration, fluidized bed, grain.

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Authors: Govindaraju.M, Ganeshkumar.R.S, Suganthi.P, Muthukumaran.V.R, Visvanathan.P

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The present study was conducted to investigate the response of plants exposed to lignite-based thermal power plant emission. For this purpose, five plant species were collected from 1.0 km distance (polluted site) and control plants were collected from 20.0 km distance (control site) to thermal power plant. The common tree species Cassia siamea Lamk., Polyalthia longifolia. Sonn, Acacia longifolia (Andrews) Wild., Azadirachta indica A.Juss, Ficus religiosa L. were selected as test plants. Photosynthetic pigments changes (chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and carotenoids) and rubisco enzyme modifications were studied. Reduction was observed in the photosynthetic pigments of plants growing in polluted site and also large sub unit of the rubisco enzyme was degraded in Azadirachta indica A. Juss collected from polluted site.

Keywords: Air pollution, Lignite-based thermal power plant, Photosynthetic pigments, Rubisco enzyme.

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Authors: J.-P. Skön, M. Johansson, O. Kauhanen, M. Raatikainen, K. Leiviskä, M. Kolehmainen

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The building sector is the largest energy consumer and CO2 emitter in the European Union (EU) and therefore the active reduction of energy consumption and elimination of energy wastage are among the main goals in it. Healthy housing and energy efficiency are affected by many factors which set challenges to monitoring, control and research of indoor air quality (IAQ) and energy consumption, especially in old buildings. These challenges include measurement and equipment costs, for example. Additionally, the measurement results are difficult to interpret and their usage in the ventilation control is also limited when taking into account the energy efficiency of housing at the same time. The main goal of this study is to develop a cost-effective building monitoring and control system especially for old buildings. The starting point or keyword of the development process is a wireless system; otherwise the installation costs become too high. As the main result, this paper describes an idea of a wireless building monitoring and control system. The first prototype of the system has been installed in 10 residential buildings and in 10 school buildings located in the City of Kuopio, Finland.

Keywords: Energy efficiency, Indoor air quality, Monitoring system, Building automation

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Authors: Sara Blanc, José V. Benlloch-Dualde, Laura Grindei, Ana C. Torres, Angélica Monteiro

Abstract:

This paper presents a study that leads an experience by introducing digital learning applied to a case study focused on primary and secondary school garden-based education. The approach represents an example for interaction among different education and research agents at different countries and levels, such as universities, public and private researches and schools, to get involved in the implementation of education for sustainable development that will make students become more sensible to natural environment, more responsible for their consumption, more aware about waste reduction and recycling, more conscious of the sustainable use of natural resources and, at the same time, more ‘digitally competent’. The experience was designed attending to the European digital education context and OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) directives in transversal skills education. The paper presents the methodology carried out in the study as well as outcomes obtained from the experience.

Keywords: School gardens, primary education, secondary education, science technology and innovation in education, digital learning, sustainable development goals, university, knowledge transference.

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Authors: S. Venkateshwarlu, B. P. Muni, A. D. Rajkumar, J. Praveen

Abstract:

Custom power is a technology driven product and service solution which embraces a family devices such as Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR), Distributed Shunt Compensator (DSTATCOM), Solid State Breaker (SSB) etc which will provide power quality functions at distribution voltages. The rapid response of these devices enables them to operate in real time, providing continuous and dynamic control of the supply including voltage and reactive power regulation, harmonic reduction and elimination of voltage dips. This paper presents the benefits of multilevel inverters when they are used for DPC based custom power devices. Power flow control mechanism, salient features, advantages and disadvantages of direct power control (DPC) using lookup table, SVM, predictive voltage vector and hybrid DPC strategies are discussed in this paper. Simulation results of three level inverter based STATCOM, harmonic analysis of multi level inverters are presented at the end.

Keywords: DPC, DPC-SVM, Dynamic voltage restorer, DSTATCOM, Multilevel inverter, PWM Converter, PDPC, VF-DPC.

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Authors: R. Shivarudraswamy, D. N. Gaonkar

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The continued interest in the use of distributed generation in recent years is leading to the growth in number of distributed generators connected to distribution networks. Steady state voltage rise resulting from the connection of these generators can be a major obstacle to their connection at lower voltage levels. The present electric distribution network is designed to keep the customer voltage within tolerance limit. This may require a reduction in connectable generation capacity, under utilization of appropriate generation sites. Thus distribution network operators need a proper voltage regulation method to allow the significant integration of distributed generation systems to existing network. In this work a voltage rise problem in a typical distribution system has been studied. A method for voltage regulation of distribution system with multiple DG system by coordinated operation distributed generator, capacitor and OLTC has been developed. A sensitivity based analysis has been carried out to determine the priority for individual generators in multiple DG environment. The effectiveness of the developed method has been evaluated under various cases through simulation results.

Keywords: Distributed generation, voltage control, sensitivity factor.

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Authors: A. Hemmati, H. Mirsaeedghazi, M. Aboonajmi

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Carrot juice is one of the most nutritious foods that are consumed around the world. Large particles in carrot juice causing turbid appearance make some problems in the concentration process such as off-flavor due to the large particles burnt on the walls of evaporators. Microfiltration (MF) is a pressure driven membrane separation method that can clarify fruit juices without enzymatic treatment. Fouling is the main problem in the membrane process causing reduction of permeate flux. Ultrasound as a cleaning technique was applied at 20 kHz to reduce fouling in membrane clarification of carrot juice using dead-end MF system with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane. Results showed that application of ultrasound waves reduce diphasic characteristic of carrot juice and permeate flux increased. Evaluation of different membrane fouling mechanisms showed that application of ultrasound waves changed creation time of each fouling mechanism. Also, its behavior was changed with varying transmembrane pressure.

Keywords: Carrot juice, dead end, microfiltration, ultrasound.

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Authors: Mohammed Mustapha Alhaji, Salawu Sadiku

Abstract:

A clay soil classified as A-7-6 and CH soil according to AASHTO and unified soil classification system respectively, was stabilized using A-3 soil (AASHTO soil classification system). The clay soil was replaced with 0%, 10%, 20%, to 100% A-3 soil, compacted at both British Standard Light (BSL) and British Standard Heavy (BSH) compaction energy levels and using Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) as evaluation criteria. The Maximum Dry Density (MDD) of the treated soils at both the BSL and BSH compaction energy levels showed increase from 0% to 40% A-3 soil replacement after which the values reduced to 100% replacement. The trend of the Optimum Moisture Content (OMC) with varied A-3 soil replacement was similar to that of MDD but in a reversed order. The OMC reduced from 0% to 40% A-3 soil replacement after which the values increased to 100% replacement. This trend was attributed to the observed reduction in void ratio from 0% to 40% replacement after which the void ratio increased to 100% replacement. The maximum UCS for the soil at varied A-3 soil replacement increased from 272 and 770 kN/m2 for BSL and BSH compaction energy level at 0% replacement to 295 and 795 kN/m2 for BSL and BSH compaction energy level respectively at 10% replacement after which the values reduced to 22 and 60 kN/m2 for BSL and BSH compaction energy level respectively at 70% replacement. Beyond 70% replacement, the mixtures could not be moulded for UCS test.

Keywords: A-3 soil, clay soil, pozzolanic action, stabilization.

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Authors: N. Khomarloo, F. Mousazadegan, M. Latifi, N. Hemmatinejad

Abstract:

Recently, the utilization of reusable surgical gowns in order to decrease costs, environmental protection and enhance surgeon’s comfort is considered. One of the concerns in applying this kind of medical protective clothing is reduction of their resistance to bacterial penetration especially in wet state, after repeated laundering and sterilizing process. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the laundering and sterilizing process on the reusable surgical gown’s resistance against bacterial wet penetration. To this end, penetration of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria in wet state after 70 washing and sterilizing cycles was evaluated on the two single-layer and three-layer reusable gowns. The outcomes reveal that up to 20 laundering and sterilizing cycles, protective property of samples improves due to fabric shrinkage, after that because of the fabric’s construction opening, the bacterial penetration increase. However, the three-layer gown presents higher protective performance comparing to the single-layer one.

Keywords: Reusable surgical gown, laundry, sterilization, wet bacterial penetration.

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Authors: Truong Nguyen Luan Vu, Moonyong Lee

Abstract:

The interactions between input/output variables are a very common phenomenon encountered in the design of multi-loop controllers for interacting multivariable processes, which can be a serious obstacle for achieving a good overall performance of multiloop control system. To overcome this impediment, the decomposed dynamic interaction analysis is proposed by decomposing the multiloop control system into a set of n independent SISO systems with the corresponding effective open-loop transfer function (EOTF) within the dynamic interactions embedded explicitly. For each EOTF, the reduced model is independently formulated by using the proposed reduction design strategy, and then the paired multi-loop proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is derived quite simply and straightforwardly by using internal model control (IMC) theory. This design method can easily be implemented for various industrial processes because of its effectiveness. Several case studies are considered to demonstrate the superior of the proposed method.

Keywords: Multi-loop PID controller, internal model control(IMC), effective open-loop transfer function (EOTF)

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