Search results for: particle size distribution
2910 Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry of Proteins
Authors: Santanu Ray, Alexander G. Shard
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The adsorption of bovine serum albumin (BSA), immunoglobulin G (IgG) and fibrinogen (Fgn) on fluorinated selfassembled monolayers have been studied using time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (SE). The objective of the work has to establish the utility of ToF-SIMS for the determination of the amount of protein adsorbed on the surface. Quantification of surface adsorbed proteins was carried out using SE and a good correlation between ToF-SIMS results and SE was achieved. The surface distribution of proteins were also analysed using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). We show that the surface distribution of proteins strongly affect the ToFSIMS results.
Keywords: ToF-SIMS, Spectroscopic Ellipsometry, Protein, Atomic Force Microscopy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19312909 Radiation Dose Distribution for Workers in South Korean Nuclear Power Plants
Authors: B. I. Lee, S. I. Kim, D. H. Suh, J. I. Kim, Y. K. Lim
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A total of 33,680 nuclear power plants (NPPs) workers were monitored and recorded from 1990 to 2007. According to the record, the average individual radiation dose has been decreasing continually from it 3.20 mSv/man in 1990 to 1.12 mSv/man at the end of 2007. After the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) 60 recommendation was generalized in South Korea, no nuclear power plant workers received above 20 mSv radiation, and the numbers of relatively highly exposed workers have been decreasing continuously. The age distribution of radiation workers in nuclear power plants was composed of mainly 20-30- year-olds (83%) for 1990 ~ 1994 and 30-40-year-olds (75%) for 2003 ~ 2007. The difference in individual average dose by age was not significant. Most (77%) of NPP radiation exposures from 1990 to 2007 occurred mostly during the refueling period. With regard to exposure type, the majority of exposures were external exposures, representing 95% of the total exposures, while internal exposures represented only 5%. External effective dose was affected mainly by gamma radiation exposure, with an insignificant amount of neutron exposure. As for internal effective dose, tritium (3H) in the pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) was the biggest cause of exposure.
Keywords: Dose distribution, External exposure, Nuclear powerplant, Occupational radiation dose
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25472908 Porous Ni Electrodes Modified with Au Nanoparticles for Hydrogen Production
Authors: V. Pérez-Herranz, C. González-Buch, E. M. Ortega, S. Mestre
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In this work new macroporous Ni electrodes modified with Au nanoparticles for hydrogen production have been developed. The supporting macroporous Ni electrodes have been obtained by means of the electrodeposition at high current densities. Then, the Au nanoparticles were synthesized and added to the electrode surface. The electrocatalytic behaviour of the developed electrocatalysts was studied by means of pseudo-steady-state polarization curves, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and hydrogen discharge curves. The size of the Au synthetized nanoparticles shows a monomodal distribution, with a very sharp band between 10 and 50 nm. The characteristic parameters d10, d50 and d90 were 14, 20 and 31 nm respectively. From Tafel polarization data has been concluded that the Au nanoparticles improve the catalytic activity of the developed electrodes towards the HER respect to the macroporous Ni electrodes. EIS permits to obtain the electrochemically active area by means of the roughness factor value. All the developed electrodes show roughness factor values in the same order of magnitude. From the activation energy results it can be concluded that the Au nanoparticles improve the intrinsic catalytic activity of the macroporous Ni electrodes.Keywords: Au nanoparticles, hydrogen evolution reaction, porous Ni electrodes.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20582907 Urban and Rural Population Pyramids in Georgia Since 1950s
Authors: Shorena Tsiklauri, Avtandil Sulaberidze, Nino Gomelauri
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In the years followed independence, an economic crisis and some conflicts led to the displacement of many people inside Georgia. The growing poverty, unemployment, low income and its unequal distribution limited access to basic social service have had a clear direct impact on Georgian population dynamics and its age-sex structure. Factors influencing the changing population age structure and urbanization include mortality, fertility, migration and expansion of urban. In this paper presents the main factors of changing the distribution by urban and rural areas. How different are the urban and rural age and sex structures? Does Georgia have the same age-sex structure among their urban and rural populations since 1950s?Keywords: Age and sex structure of population, Georgia, migration, urban-rural population.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 30182906 Preparation of Fe3Si/Ferrite Micro- and Nano-Powder Composite
Authors: R. Bures, M. Streckova, M. Faberova, P. Kurek
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Composite material based on Fe3Si micro-particles and Mn-Zn nano-ferrite was prepared using powder metallurgy technology. The sol-gel followed by autocombustion process was used for synthesis of Mn0.8Zn0.2Fe2O4 ferrite. 3 wt.% of mechanically milled ferrite was mixed with Fe3Si powder alloy. Mixed micro-nano powder system was homogenized by the Resonant Acoustic Mixing using ResodynLabRAM Mixer. This non-invasive homogenization technique was used to preserve spherical morphology of Fe3Si powder particles. Uniaxial cold pressing in the closed die at pressure 600 MPa was applied to obtain a compact sample. Microwave sintering of green compact was realized at 800°C, 20 minutes, in air. Density of the powders and composite was measured by Hepycnometry. Impulse excitation method was used to measure elastic properties of sintered composite. Mechanical properties were evaluated by measurement of transverse rupture strength (TRS) and Vickers hardness (HV). Resistivity was measured by 4 point probe method. Ferrite phase distribution in volume of the composite was documented by metallographic analysis. It has been found that nano-ferrite particle distributed among micro- particles of Fe3Si powder alloy led to high relative density (~93%) and suitable mechanical properties (TRS >100 MPa, HV ~1GPa, E-modulus ~140 GPa) of the composite. High electric resistivity (R~6.7 ohm.cm) of prepared composite indicate their potential application as soft magnetic material at medium and high frequencies.
Keywords: Micro- and nano-composite, soft magnetic materials, microwave sintering, mechanical and electric properties.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 37692905 An Experimental Investigation on the Droplet Behavior Impacting a Hot Surface above the Leidenfrost Temperature
Authors: Khaleel Sami Hamdan, Dong-Eok Kim, Sang-Ki Moon
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An appropriate model to predict the size of the droplets resulting from the break-up with the structures will help in a better understanding and modeling of the two-phase flow calculations in the simulation of a reactor core loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). A droplet behavior impacting on a hot surface above the Leidenfrost temperature was investigated. Droplets of known size and velocity were impacted to an inclined plate of hot temperature, and the behavior of the droplets was observed by a high-speed camera. It was found that for droplets of Weber number higher than a certain value, the higher the Weber number of the droplet the smaller the secondary droplets. The COBRA-TF model over-predicted the measured secondary droplet sizes obtained by the present experiment. A simple model for the secondary droplet size was proposed using the mass conservation equation. The maximum spreading diameter of the droplets was also compared to previous correlations and a fairly good agreement was found. A better prediction of the heat transfer in the case of LOCA can be obtained with the presented model.
Keywords: Break-up, droplet, impact, inclined hot plate, Leidenfrost temperature, LOCA.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23572904 Clustering Mixed Data Using Non-normal Regression Tree for Process Monitoring
Authors: Youngji Yoo, Cheong-Sool Park, Jun Seok Kim, Young-Hak Lee, Sung-Shick Kim, Jun-Geol Baek
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In the semiconductor manufacturing process, large amounts of data are collected from various sensors of multiple facilities. The collected data from sensors have several different characteristics due to variables such as types of products, former processes and recipes. In general, Statistical Quality Control (SQC) methods assume the normality of the data to detect out-of-control states of processes. Although the collected data have different characteristics, using the data as inputs of SQC will increase variations of data, require wide control limits, and decrease performance to detect outof- control. Therefore, it is necessary to separate similar data groups from mixed data for more accurate process control. In the paper, we propose a regression tree using split algorithm based on Pearson distribution to handle non-normal distribution in parametric method. The regression tree finds similar properties of data from different variables. The experiments using real semiconductor manufacturing process data show improved performance in fault detecting ability.Keywords: Semiconductor, non-normal mixed process data, clustering, Statistical Quality Control (SQC), regression tree, Pearson distribution system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17662903 Separation of Composites for Recycling: Measurement of Electrostatic Charge of Carbon and Glass Fiber Particles
Authors: J. Thirunavukkarasu, M. Poulet, T. Turner, S. Pickering
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Composite waste from manufacturing can consist of different fiber materials, including blends of different fiber. Commercially, the recycling of composite waste is currently limited to carbon fiber waste and recycling glass fiber waste is currently not economically viable due to the low cost of virgin glass fiber and the reduced mechanical properties of the recovered fibers. For this reason, the recycling of hybrid fiber materials, where carbon fiber is blended with glass fibers, cannot be processed economically. Therefore, a separation method is required to remove the glass fiber materials during the recycling process. An electrostatic separation method is chosen for this work because of the significant difference between carbon and glass fiber electrical properties. In this study, an experimental rig has been developed to measure the electrostatic charge achievable as the materials are passed through a tube. A range of particle lengths (80-100 µm, 6 mm and 12 mm), surface state conditions (0%SA, 2%SA and 6%SA), and several tube wall materials have been studied. A polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) tube and recycled fiber without sizing agent were identified as the most suitable parameters for the electrical separation method. It was also found that shorter fiber lengths helped to encourage particle flow and attain higher charge values. These findings can be used to develop a separation process to enable the cost-effective recycling of hybrid fiber composite waste.
Keywords: electrostatic charging, hybrid fiber composite, recycling, short fiber composites
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6422902 A Stochastic Diffusion Process Based on the Two-Parameters Weibull Density Function
Authors: Meriem Bahij, Ahmed Nafidi, Boujemâa Achchab, Sílvio M. A. Gama, José A. O. Matos
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Stochastic modeling concerns the use of probability to model real-world situations in which uncertainty is present. Therefore, the purpose of stochastic modeling is to estimate the probability of outcomes within a forecast, i.e. to be able to predict what conditions or decisions might happen under different situations. In the present study, we present a model of a stochastic diffusion process based on the bi-Weibull distribution function (its trend is proportional to the bi-Weibull probability density function). In general, the Weibull distribution has the ability to assume the characteristics of many different types of distributions. This has made it very popular among engineers and quality practitioners, who have considered it the most commonly used distribution for studying problems such as modeling reliability data, accelerated life testing, and maintainability modeling and analysis. In this work, we start by obtaining the probabilistic characteristics of this model, as the explicit expression of the process, its trends, and its distribution by transforming the diffusion process in a Wiener process as shown in the Ricciaardi theorem. Then, we develop the statistical inference of this model using the maximum likelihood methodology. Finally, we analyse with simulated data the computational problems associated with the parameters, an issue of great importance in its application to real data with the use of the convergence analysis methods. Overall, the use of a stochastic model reflects only a pragmatic decision on the part of the modeler. According to the data that is available and the universe of models known to the modeler, this model represents the best currently available description of the phenomenon under consideration.Keywords: Diffusion process, discrete sampling, likelihood estimation method, simulation, stochastic diffusion equation, trends functions, bi-parameters Weibull density function.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19582901 Molecular Dynamics Simulation of the Effect of the Solid Gas Interface Nanolayer on Enhanced Thermal Conductivity of Copper-CO2 Nanofluid
Authors: Zeeshan Ahmed, Ajinkya Sarode, Pratik Basarkar, Atul Bhargav, Debjyoti Banerjee
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The use of CO2 in oil recovery and in CO2 capture and storage is gaining traction in recent years. These applications involve heat transfer between CO2 and the base fluid, and hence, there arises a need to improve the thermal conductivity of CO2 to increase the process efficiency and reduce cost. One way to improve the thermal conductivity is through nanoparticle addition in the base fluid. The nanofluid model in this study consisted of copper (Cu) nanoparticles in varying concentrations with CO2 as a base fluid. No experimental data are available on thermal conductivity of CO2 based nanofluid. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are an increasingly adopted tool to perform preliminary assessments of nanoparticle (NP) fluid interactions. In this study, the effect of the formation of a nanolayer (or molecular layering) at the gas-solid interface on thermal conductivity is investigated using equilibrium MD simulations by varying NP diameter and keeping the volume fraction (1.413%) of nanofluid constant to check the diameter effect of NP on the nanolayer and thermal conductivity. A dense semi-solid fluid layer was seen to be formed at the NP-gas interface, and the thickness increases with increase in particle diameter, which also moves with the NP Brownian motion. Density distribution has been done to see the effect of nanolayer, and its thickness around the NP. These findings are extremely beneficial, especially to industries employed in oil recovery as increased thermal conductivity of CO2 will lead to enhanced oil recovery and thermal energy storage.
Keywords: Copper-CO2 nanofluid, molecular interfacial layer, thermal conductivity, molecular dynamic simulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10962900 Tool Wear of Metal Matrix Composite 10wt% AlN Reinforcement Using TiB2 Cutting Tool
Authors: M. S. Said, J. A. Ghani, Che Hassan C. H., N. N. Wan, M. A. Selamat, R. Othman
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Metal matrix composites (MMCs) attract considerable attention as a result from its ability in providing a high strength, high modulus, high toughness, high impact properties, improving wear resistance and providing good corrosion resistance compared to unreinforced alloy. Aluminium Silicon (Al/Si) alloy MMC has been widely used in various industrial sectors such as in transportation, domestic equipment, aerospace, military, construction, etc. Aluminium silicon alloy is an MMC that had been reinforced with aluminium nitrate (AlN) particle and become a new generation material use in automotive and aerospace sector. The AlN is one of the advance material that have a bright prospect in future since it has features such as lightweight, high strength, high hardness and stiffness quality. However, the high degree of ceramic particle reinforcement and the irregular nature of the particles along the matrix material that contribute to its low density is the main problem which leads to difficulties in machining process. This paper examined the tool wear when milling AlSi/AlN Metal Matrix Composite using a TiB2 (Titanium diboride) coated carbide cutting tool. The volume of the AlN reinforced particle was 10% and milling process was carried out under dry cutting condition. The TiB2 coated carbide insert parameters used were at the cutting speed of (230, 300 and 370m/min, feed rate of 0.8, Depth of Cut (DoC) at 0.4m). The Sometech SV-35 video microscope system used to quantify of the tool wear. The result shown that tool life span increasing with the cutting speeds at (370m/min, feed rate of 0.8mm/tooth and DoC at 0.4mm) which constituted an optimum condition for longer tool life lasted until 123.2 mins. Meanwhile, at medium cutting speed which at 300m/m, feed rate of 0.8mm/tooth and depth of cut at 0.4mm we found that tool life span lasted until 119.86 mins while at low cutting speed it lasted in 119.66 mins. High cutting speed will give the best parameter in cutting AlSi/AlN MMCs material. The result will help manufacturers in machining process of AlSi/AlN MMCs materials.
Keywords: AlSi/AlN Metal Matrix Composite milling process, tool wear, TiB2 coated cemented carbide tool.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 31842899 Impact of Stack Caches: Locality Awareness and Cost Effectiveness
Authors: Abdulrahman K. Alshegaifi, Chun-Hsi Huang
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Treating data based on its location in memory has received much attention in recent years due to its different properties, which offer important aspects for cache utilization. Stack data and non-stack data may interfere with each other’s locality in the data cache. One of the important aspects of stack data is that it has high spatial and temporal locality. In this work, we simulate non-unified cache design that split data cache into stack and non-stack caches in order to maintain stack data and non-stack data separate in different caches. We observe that the overall hit rate of non-unified cache design is sensitive to the size of non-stack cache. Then, we investigate the appropriate size and associativity for stack cache to achieve high hit ratio especially when over 99% of accesses are directed to stack cache. The result shows that on average more than 99% of stack cache accuracy is achieved by using 2KB of capacity and 1-way associativity. Further, we analyze the improvement in hit rate when adding small, fixed, size of stack cache at level1 to unified cache architecture. The result shows that the overall hit rate of unified cache design with adding 1KB of stack cache is improved by approximately, on average, 3.9% for Rijndael benchmark. The stack cache is simulated by using SimpleScalar toolset.
Keywords: Hit rate, Locality of program, Stack cache, and Stack data.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14952898 Concept of Automation in Management of Electric Power Systems
Authors: Richard Joseph, Nerey Mvungi
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An electric power system includes a generating, a transmission, a distribution, and consumers subsystems. An electrical power network in Tanzania keeps growing larger by the day and become more complex so that, most utilities have long wished for real-time monitoring and remote control of electrical power system elements such as substations, intelligent devices, power lines, capacitor banks, feeder switches, fault analyzers and other physical facilities. In this paper, the concept of automation of management of power systems from generation level to end user levels was determined by using Power System Simulator for Engineering (PSS/E) version 30.3.2.
Keywords: Automation, Distribution subsystem, Generating subsystem, PSS/E, TANESCO, Transmission subsystem.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 35632897 Optimizing the Probabilistic Neural Network Training Algorithm for Multi-Class Identification
Authors: Abdelhadi Lotfi, Abdelkader Benyettou
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In this work, a training algorithm for probabilistic neural networks (PNN) is presented. The algorithm addresses one of the major drawbacks of PNN, which is the size of the hidden layer in the network. By using a cross-validation training algorithm, the number of hidden neurons is shrunk to a smaller number consisting of the most representative samples of the training set. This is done without affecting the overall architecture of the network. Performance of the network is compared against performance of standard PNN for different databases from the UCI database repository. Results show an important gain in network size and performance.
Keywords: Classification, probabilistic neural networks, network optimization, pattern recognition.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12022896 Medical Image Registration by Minimizing Divergence Measure Based on Tsallis Entropy
Authors: Shaoyan Sun, Liwei Zhang, Chonghui Guo
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As the use of registration packages spreads, the number of the aligned image pairs in image databases (either by manual or automatic methods) increases dramatically. These image pairs can serve as a set of training data. Correspondingly, the images that are to be registered serve as testing data. In this paper, a novel medical image registration method is proposed which is based on the a priori knowledge of the expected joint intensity distribution estimated from pre-aligned training images. The goal of the registration is to find the optimal transformation such that the distance between the observed joint intensity distribution obtained from the testing image pair and the expected joint intensity distribution obtained from the corresponding training image pair is minimized. The distance is measured using the divergence measure based on Tsallis entropy. Experimental results show that, compared with the widely-used Shannon mutual information as well as Tsallis mutual information, the proposed method is computationally more efficient without sacrificing registration accuracy.
Keywords: Multimodality images, image registration, Shannonentropy, Tsallis entropy, mutual information, Powell optimization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16242895 Springback Property and Texture Distribution of Grained Pure Copper
Authors: Takashi Sakai, Hitoshi Omata, Jun-Ichi Koyama
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To improve the material characteristics of single- and poly-crystals of pure copper, the respective relationships between crystallographic orientations and microstructures, and the bending and mechanical properties were examined. And texture distribution is also analyzed. A grain refinement procedure was performed to obtain a grained structure. Furthermore, some analytical results related to crystal direction maps, inverse pole figures, and textures were obtained from SEM-EBSD analyses. Results showed that these grained metallic materials have peculiar springback characteristics with various bending angles.Keywords: Pure Copper, Grain Refinement, Environmental Materials, SEM-EBSD Analysis, Texture, Microstructure
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21582894 The Role of Ionic Strength and Mineral Size to Zeta Potential for the Adhesion of P. putida to Mineral Surfaces
Authors: M. Z. Fathiah, R. G. Edyvean
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Electrostatic interaction energy (ΔEEDL) is a part of the Extended Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (XDLVO) theory, which, together with van der Waals (ΔEVDW) and acid base (ΔEAB) interaction energies, has been extensively used to investigate the initial adhesion of bacteria to surfaces. Electrostatic or electrical double layer interaction energy is considerably affected by surface potential; however it cannot be determined experimentally and is usually replaced by zeta (ζ) potential via electrophoretic mobility. This paper focusses on the effect of ionic concentration as a function of pH and the effect of mineral grain size on ζ potential. It was found that both ionic strength and mineral grain size play a major role in determining the value of ζ potential for the adhesion of P. putida to hematite and quartz surfaces. Higher ζ potential values lead to higher electrostatic interaction energies and eventually to higher total XDLVO interaction energy resulting in bacterial repulsion.
Keywords: XDLVO, Electrostatic interaction energy, zeta potential, P. putida, mineral.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25862893 Mechanical Properties of Cement Slurry by Partially Substitution of Industry Waste Natural Pozzolans
Authors: R. Ziaie Moayed, S. P. Emadoleslami Oskoei, S. D. Beladi Mousavi, A. Taleb Beydokhti
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There have been many reports of the destructive effects of cement on the environment in recent years. In the present research, it has been attempted to reduce the destructive effects of cement by replacing silica fume as adhesive materials instead of cement. The present study has attempted to improve the mechanical properties of cement slurry by using waste material from a glass production factory, located in Qazvin city of Iran, in which accumulation volume has become an environmental threat. The chemical analysis of the waste material indicates that this material contains about 94% of SiO2 and AL2O3 and has a close structure to silica fume. Also, the particle grain size test was performed on the mentioned waste. Then, the unconfined compressive strength test of the slurry was performed by preparing a mixture of water and adhesives with different percentages of cement and silica fume. The water to an adhesive ratio of this mixture is 1:3, and the curing process last 28 days. It was found that the sample had an unconfined compressive strength of about 300 kg/cm2 in a mixture with equal proportions of cement and silica fume. Besides, the sample had a brittle fracture in the slurry sample made of pure cement, however, the fracture in cement-silica fume slurry mixture is flexible and the structure of the specimen remains coherent after fracture. Therefore, considering the flexibility that is achieved by replacing this waste, it can be used to stabilize soils with cracking potential.
Keywords: Cement replacement, cement slurry, environmental threat, natural pozzolan, silica fume, waste material.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6502892 Sand Production Modelled with Darcy Fluid Flow Using Discrete Element Method
Authors: M. N. Nwodo, Y. P. Cheng, N. H. Minh
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In the process of recovering oil in weak sandstone formations, the strength of sandstones around the wellbore is weakened due to the increase of effective stress/load from the completion activities around the cavity. The weakened and de-bonded sandstone may be eroded away by the produced fluid, which is termed sand production. It is one of the major trending subjects in the petroleum industry because of its significant negative impacts, as well as some observed positive impacts. For efficient sand management therefore, there has been need for a reliable study tool to understand the mechanism of sanding. One method of studying sand production is the use of the widely recognized Discrete Element Method (DEM), Particle Flow Code (PFC3D) which represents sands as granular individual elements bonded together at contact points. However, there is limited knowledge of the particle-scale behavior of the weak sandstone, and the parameters that affect sanding. This paper aims to investigate the reliability of using PFC3D and a simple Darcy flow in understanding the sand production behavior of a weak sandstone. An isotropic tri-axial test on a weak oil sandstone sample was first simulated at a confining stress of 1MPa to calibrate and validate the parallel bond models of PFC3D using a 10m height and 10m diameter solid cylindrical model. The effect of the confining stress on the number of bonds failure was studied using this cylindrical model. With the calibrated data and sample material properties obtained from the tri-axial test, simulations without and with fluid flow were carried out to check on the effect of Darcy flow on bonds failure using the same model geometry. The fluid flow network comprised of every four particles connected with tetrahedral flow pipes with a central pore or flow domain. Parametric studies included the effects of confining stress, and fluid pressure; as well as validating flow rate – permeability relationship to verify Darcy’s fluid flow law. The effect of model size scaling on sanding was also investigated using 4m height, 2m diameter model. The parallel bond model successfully calibrated the sample’s strength of 4.4MPa, showing a sharp peak strength before strain-softening, similar to the behavior of real cemented sandstones. There seems to be an exponential increasing relationship for the bigger model, but a curvilinear shape for the smaller model. The presence of the Darcy flow induced tensile forces and increased the number of broken bonds. For the parametric studies, flow rate has a linear relationship with permeability at constant pressure head. The higher the fluid flow pressure, the higher the number of broken bonds/sanding. The DEM PFC3D is a promising tool to studying the micromechanical behavior of cemented sandstones.
Keywords: Discrete Element Method, fluid flow, parametric study, sand production/bonds failure.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17782891 Experimental Investigation of Plane Jets Exiting Five Parallel Channels with Large Aspect Ratio
Authors: Laurentiu Moruz, Jens Kitzhofer, Mircea Dinulescu
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The paper aims to extend the knowledge about jet behavior and jet interaction between five plane unventilated jets with large aspect ratio (AR). The distance between the single plane jets is two times the channel height. The experimental investigation applies 2D Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and static pressure measurements. Our study focuses on the influence of two different outlet nozzle geometries (triangular shape with 2 x 7.5° and blunt geometry) with respect to variation of Reynolds number from 5500 - 12000. It is shown that the outlet geometry has a major influence on the jet formation in terms of uniformity of velocity profiles downstream of the sudden expansion. Furthermore, we describe characteristic regions like converging region, merging region and combined region. The triangular outlet geometry generates most uniform velocity distributions in comparison to a blunt outlet nozzle geometry. The blunt outlet geometry shows an unstable behavior where the jets tend to attach to one side of the walls (ceiling) generating a large recirculation region on the opposite side. Static pressure measurements confirm the observation and indicate that the recirculation region is connected to larger pressure drop.
Keywords: 2D particle image velocimetry, parallel jet interaction, pressure drop, sudden expansion.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8672890 An Artificial Neural Network Model Based Study of Seismic Wave
Authors: Hemant Kumar, Nilendu Das
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A study based on ANN structure gives us the information to predict the size of the future in realizing a past event. ANN, IMD (Indian meteorological department) data and remote sensing were used to enable a number of parameters for calculating the size that may occur in the future. A threshold selected specifically above the high-frequency harvest reached the area during the selected seismic activity. In the field of human and local biodiversity it remains to obtain the right parameter compared to the frequency of impact. But during the study the assumption is that predicting seismic activity is a difficult process, not because of the parameters involved here, which can be analyzed and funded in research activity.
Keywords: ANN, Bayesian class, earthquakes, IMD.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6652889 Connected Vertex Cover in 2-Connected Planar Graph with Maximum Degree 4 is NP-complete
Authors: Priyadarsini P. L. K, Hemalatha T.
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This paper proves that the problem of finding connected vertex cover in a 2-connected planar graph ( CVC-2 ) with maximum degree 4 is NP-complete. The motivation for proving this result is to give a shorter and simpler proof of NP-Completeness of TRA-MLC (the Top Right Access point Minimum-Length Corridor) problem [1], by finding the reduction from CVC-2. TRA-MLC has many applications in laying optical fibre cables for data communication and electrical wiring in floor plans.The problem of finding connected vertex cover in any planar graph ( CVC ) with maximum degree 4 is NP-complete [2]. We first show that CVC-2 belongs to NP and then we find a polynomial reduction from CVC to CVC-2. Let a graph G0 and an integer K form an instance of CVC, where G0 is a planar graph and K is an upper bound on the size of the connected vertex cover in G0. We construct a 2-connected planar graph, say G, by identifying the blocks and cut vertices of G0, and then finding the planar representation of all the blocks of G0, leading to a plane graph G1. We replace the cut vertices with cycles in such a way that the resultant graph G is a 2-connected planar graph with maximum degree 4. We consider L = K -2t+3 t i=1 di where t is the number of cut vertices in G1 and di is the number of blocks for which ith cut vertex is common. We prove that G will have a connected vertex cover with size less than or equal to L if and only if G0 has a connected vertex cover of size less than or equal to K.Keywords: NP-complete, 2-Connected planar graph, block, cut vertex
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19932888 Adaptive Shape Parameter (ASP) Technique for Local Radial Basis Functions (RBFs) and Their Application for Solution of Navier Strokes Equations
Authors: A. Javed, K. Djidjeli, J. T. Xing
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The concept of adaptive shape parameters (ASP) has been presented for solution of incompressible Navier Strokes equations using mesh-free local Radial Basis Functions (RBF). The aim is to avoid ill-conditioning of coefficient matrices of RBF weights and inaccuracies in RBF interpolation resulting from non-optimized shape of basis functions for the cases where data points (or nodes) are not distributed uniformly throughout the domain. Unlike conventional approaches which assume globally similar values of RBF shape parameters, the presented ASP technique suggests that shape parameter be calculated exclusively for each data point (or node) based on the distribution of data points within its own influence domain. This will ensure interpolation accuracy while still maintaining well conditioned system of equations for RBF weights. Performance and accuracy of ASP technique has been tested by evaluating derivatives and laplacian of a known function using RBF in Finite difference mode (RBFFD), with and without the use of adaptivity in shape parameters. Application of adaptive shape parameters (ASP) for solution of incompressible Navier Strokes equations has been presented by solving lid driven cavity flow problem on mesh-free domain using RBF-FD. The results have been compared for fixed and adaptive shape parameters. Improved accuracy has been achieved with the use of ASP in RBF-FD especially at regions where larger gradients of field variables exist.
Keywords: CFD, Meshless Particle Method, Radial Basis Functions, Shape Parameters
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 28162887 High Impedance Fault Detection using LVQ Neural Networks
Authors: Abhishek Bansal, G. N. Pillai
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This paper presents a new method to detect high impedance faults in radial distribution systems. Magnitudes of third and fifth harmonic components of voltages and currents are used as a feature vector for fault discrimination. The proposed methodology uses a learning vector quantization (LVQ) neural network as a classifier for identifying high impedance arc-type faults. The network learns from the data obtained from simulation of a simple radial system under different fault and system conditions. Compared to a feed-forward neural network, a properly tuned LVQ network gives quicker response.Keywords: Fault identification, distribution networks, high impedance arc-faults, feature vector, LVQ networks.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22012886 Probabilistic Modeling of Network-induced Delays in Networked Control Systems
Authors: Manoj Kumar, A.K. Verma, A. Srividya
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Time varying network induced delays in networked control systems (NCS) are known for degrading control system-s quality of performance (QoP) and causing stability problems. In literature, a control method employing modeling of communication delays as probability distribution, proves to be a better method. This paper focuses on modeling of network induced delays as probability distribution. CAN and MIL-STD-1553B are extensively used to carry periodic control and monitoring data in networked control systems. In literature, methods to estimate only the worst-case delays for these networks are available. In this paper probabilistic network delay model for CAN and MIL-STD-1553B networks are given. A systematic method to estimate values to model parameters from network parameters is given. A method to predict network delay in next cycle based on the present network delay is presented. Effect of active network redundancy and redundancy at node level on network delay and system response-time is also analyzed.Keywords: NCS (networked control system), delay analysis, response-time distribution, worst-case delay, CAN, MIL-STD-1553B, redundancy
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17612885 Fast Database Indexing for Large Protein Sequence Collections Using Parallel N-Gram Transformation Algorithm
Authors: Jehad A. H. Hammad, Nur'Aini binti Abdul Rashid
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With the rapid development in the field of life sciences and the flooding of genomic information, the need for faster and scalable searching methods has become urgent. One of the approaches that were investigated is indexing. The indexing methods have been categorized into three categories which are the lengthbased index algorithms, transformation-based algorithms and mixed techniques-based algorithms. In this research, we focused on the transformation based methods. We embedded the N-gram method into the transformation-based method to build an inverted index table. We then applied the parallel methods to speed up the index building time and to reduce the overall retrieval time when querying the genomic database. Our experiments show that the use of N-Gram transformation algorithm is an economical solution; it saves time and space too. The result shows that the size of the index is smaller than the size of the dataset when the size of N-Gram is 5 and 6. The parallel N-Gram transformation algorithm-s results indicate that the uses of parallel programming with large dataset are promising which can be improved further.Keywords: Biological sequence, Database index, N-gram indexing, Parallel computing, Sequence retrieval.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21172884 The Influence of Step and Fillet Shape on Nozzle Endwall Heat Transfer
Authors: JeongJu Kim, Heeyoon Chung, DongHo Rhee, HyungHee Cho
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There is a gap at combustor-turbine interface where leakage flow comes out to prevent hot gas ingestion into the gas turbine nozzle platform. The leakage flow protects the nozzle endwall surface from the hot gas coming from combustor exit. For controlling flow’s stream, the gap’s geometry is transformed by changing fillet radius size. During the operation, step configuration is occurred that was unintended between combustor-turbine platform interface caused by thermal expansion or mismatched assembly. In this study, CFD simulations were performed to investigate the effect of the fillet and step on heat transfer and film cooling effectiveness on the nozzle platform. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-stokes equation was solved with turbulence model, SST k-omega. With the fillet configuration, predicted film cooling effectiveness results indicated that fillet radius size influences to enhance film cooling effectiveness. Predicted film cooling effectiveness results at forward facing step configuration indicated that step height influences to enhance film cooling effectiveness. We suggested that designer change a combustor-turbine interface configuration which was varied by fillet radius size near endwall gap when there was a step at combustor-turbine interface. Gap shape was modified by increasing fillet radius size near nozzle endwall. Also, fillet radius and step height were interacted with the film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer on endwall surface.
Keywords: Gas turbine, film cooling effectiveness, endwall, fillet.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15352883 Geographic Profiling Based on Multi-point Centrography with K-means Clustering
Authors: Jiaji Zhou, Le Liang, Long Chen
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Geographic Profiling has successfully assisted investigations for serial crimes. Considering the multi-cluster feature of serial criminal spots, we propose a Multi-point Centrography model as a natural extension of Single-point Centrography for geographic profiling. K-means clustering is first performed on the data samples and then Single-point Centrography is adopted to derive a probability distribution on each cluster. Finally, a weighted combinations of each distribution is formed to make next-crime spot prediction. Experimental study on real cases demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed model.
Keywords: Geographic profiling, Centrography model, K-means algorithm
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20622882 Efficient Variants of Square Contour Algorithm for Blind Equalization of QAM Signals
Authors: Ahmad Tariq Sheikh, Shahzad Amin Sheikh
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A new distance-adjusted approach is proposed in which static square contours are defined around an estimated symbol in a QAM constellation, which create regions that correspond to fixed step sizes and weighting factors. As a result, the equalizer tap adjustment consists of a linearly weighted sum of adaptation criteria that is scaled by a variable step size. This approach is the basis of two new algorithms: the Variable step size Square Contour Algorithm (VSCA) and the Variable step size Square Contour Decision-Directed Algorithm (VSDA). The proposed schemes are compared with existing blind equalization algorithms in the SCA family in terms of convergence speed, constellation eye opening and residual ISI suppression. Simulation results for 64-QAM signaling over empirically derived microwave radio channels confirm the efficacy of the proposed algorithms. An RTL implementation of the blind adaptive equalizer based on the proposed schemes is presented and the system is configured to operate in VSCA error signal mode, for square QAM signals up to 64-QAM.Keywords: Adaptive filtering, Blind Equalization, Square Contour Algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18352881 A Semi-Fragile Watermarking Scheme for Color Image Authentication
Authors: M. Hamad Hassan, S.A.M. Gilani
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In this paper, a semi-fragile watermarking scheme is proposed for color image authentication. In this particular scheme, the color image is first transformed from RGB to YST color space, suitable for watermarking the color media. Each channel is divided into 4×4 non-overlapping blocks and its each 2×2 sub-block is selected. The embedding space is created by setting the two LSBs of selected sub-block to zero, which will hold the authentication and recovery information. For verification of work authentication and parity bits denoted by 'a' & 'p' are computed for each 2×2 subblock. For recovery, intensity mean of each 2×2 sub-block is computed and encoded upto six to eight bits depending upon the channel selection. The size of sub-block is important for correct localization and fast computation. For watermark distribution 2DTorus Automorphism is implemented using a private key to have a secure mapping of blocks. The perceptibility of watermarked image is quite reasonable both subjectively and objectively. Our scheme is oblivious, correctly localizes the tampering and able to recovery the original work with probability of near one.
Keywords: Image Authentication, YST Color Space, Intensity Mean, LSBs, PSNR.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1821