Search results for: temperature field
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 4767

Search results for: temperature field

3207 Warm Mix and Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement: A Greener Road Approach

Authors: Lillian Gungat, Meor Othman Hamzah, Mohd Rosli Mohd Hasan, Jan Valentin

Abstract:

Utilization of a high percentage of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) requires higher production temperatures and consumes more energy. High production temperature expedites the aging of bitumen in RAP, which could affect the mixture performance. Warm mix asphalt (WMA) additive enables reduced production temperatures as a result of viscosity reduction. This paper evaluates the integration of a high percentage of RAP with a WMA additive known as RH-WMA. The optimum dosage of RH-WMA was determined from basic properties tests. A total of 0%, 30% and 50% RAP contents from two roads sources were modified with RH-WMA. The modified RAP bitumen were examined for viscosity, stiffness, rutting resistance and greenhouse gas emissions. The addition of RH-WMA improved the flow of bitumen by reducing the viscosity, and thus, decreased the construction temperature. The stiffness of the RAP modified bitumen reduced with the incorporation of RH-WMA. The positive improvement in rutting resistance was observed on bitumen with the addition of RAP and RH-WMA in comparison with control. It was estimated that the addition of RH-WMA could potentially reduce fuel usage and GHG emissions by 22 %. Hence, the synergy of RAP and WMA technology can be an alternative in green road construction.

Keywords: Reclaimed asphalt pavement, WMA additive, viscosity, stiffness, emissions.

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3206 Simulation of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer in Inclined Cavity using Lattice Boltzmann Method

Authors: Arash Karimipour, A. Hossein Nezhad, E. Shirani, A. Safaei

Abstract:

In this paper, Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) is used to study laminar flow with mixed convection heat transfer inside a two-dimensional inclined lid-driven rectangular cavity with aspect ratio AR = 3. Bottom wall of the cavity is maintained at lower temperature than the top lid, and its vertical walls are assumed insulated. Top lid motion results in fluid motion inside the cavity. Inclination of the cavity causes horizontal and vertical components of velocity to be affected by buoyancy force. To include this effect, calculation procedure of macroscopic properties by LBM is changed and collision term of Boltzmann equation is modified. A computer program is developed to simulate this problem using BGK model of lattice Boltzmann method. The effects of the variations of Richardson number and inclination angle on the thermal and flow behavior of the fluid inside the cavity are investigated. The results are presented as velocity and temperature profiles, stream function contours and isotherms. It is concluded that LBM has good potential to simulate mixed convection heat transfer problems.

Keywords: gravity, inclined lid driven cavity, lattice Boltzmannmethod, mixed convection.

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3205 Avicelase Production by a Thermophilic Geobacillus stearothermophilus Isolated from Soil using Sugarcane Bagasse

Authors: E. A. Makky

Abstract:

Studies were carried out on the comparative study of the production of Avicelase enzyme using sugarcane bagasse-SCB in two different statuses (i.e. treated and untreated SCB) by thermophilic Geobacillus stearothermophilus at 50ºC. Only four thermophilic bacterial isolates were isolated and assayed for Avicelase production using UntSCB and TSCB. Only one isolate selected as most potent and identified as G. stearothermophilus used in this study. A specific endo-β-1,4-D-glucanase (Avicelase EC 3.2.1.91) was partially purified from a thermophilic bacterial strain was isolated from different soil samples when grown on cellulose enrichment SCB substrate as the sole carbon source. Results shown that G. stearothermophilus was the better Avicelase producer strain. Avicelase had an optimum pH and temperature 7.0 and 50ºC for both UntSCB and TSCB and exhibited good pH stability between "5-8" and "4-9", however, good temperature stability between (30-80ºC) for UntSCB and TSCB, respectively. Other factors affecting the production of Avicelase were compared (i.e. SCB concentration, inoculum size and different incubation periods), all results observed and obtained were revealed that the TSCB was exhibited maximal enzyme activity in comparison with the results obtained from UntSCB, so, the TSCB was enhancing the Avicelase production.

Keywords: Geobacillus stearothermophilus, Avicelase, Sugarcane bagasse

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3204 Comparative Analysis of Geographical Routing Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks

Authors: Rahul Malhotra

Abstract:

The field of wireless sensor networks (WSN) engages a lot of associates in the research community as an interdisciplinary field of interest. This type of network is inexpensive, multifunctionally attributable to advances in micro-electromechanical systems and conjointly the explosion and expansion of wireless communications. A mobile ad hoc network is a wireless network without fastened infrastructure or federal management. Due to the infrastructure-less mode of operation, mobile ad-hoc networks are gaining quality. During this work, we have performed an efficient performance study of the two major routing protocols: Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocols. We have used an accurate simulation model supported NS2 for this purpose. Our simulation results showed that AODV mitigates the drawbacks of the DSDV and provides better performance as compared to DSDV.

Keywords: Routing protocols, mobility, Mobile Ad-hoc Networks, Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector, Dynamic Source Routing, Destination Sequence Distance Vector, Quality of Service.

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3203 Porous Particles Drying in a Vertical Upward Pneumatic Conveying Dryer

Authors: Samy M. El-Behery, W. A. El-Askary, K. A. Ibrahim, Mofreh H. Hamed

Abstract:

A steady two-phase flow model has been developed to simulate the drying process of porous particle in a pneumatic conveying dryer. The model takes into account the momentum, heat and mass transfer between the continuous phase and the dispersed phase. A single particle model was employed to calculate the evaporation rate. In this model the pore structure is simplified to allow the dominant evaporation mechanism to be readily identified at all points within the duct. The predominant mechanism at any time depends upon the pressure, temperature and the diameter of pore from which evaporating is occurring. The model was validated against experimental studies of pneumatic transport at low and high speeds as well as pneumatic drying. The effects of operating conditions on the dryer parameters are studied numerically. The present results show that the drying rate is enhanced as the inlet gas temperature and the gas flow rate increase and as the solid mass flow rate deceases. The present results also demonstrate the necessity of measuring the inlet gas velocity or the solid concentration in any experimental analysis.

Keywords: Two-phase, gas-solid, pneumatic drying, pneumatic conveying, heat and mass transfer

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3202 Enhancing Human-Computer Interaction and Feedback in Touchscreen Icon

Authors: Hsinfu Huang Li-Hao Chen

Abstract:

In order to enhance the usability of the human computer interface (HCI) on the touchscreen, this study explored the optimal tactile depth and effect of visual cues on the user-s tendency to touch the touchscreen icons. The experimental program was designed on the touchscreen in this study. Results indicated that the ratio of the icon size to the tactile depth was 1:0.106. There were significant effects of experienced users and novices on the tactile feedback depth (p < 0.01). In addition, the results proved that the visual cues provided a feedback that helped to guide the user-s touch icons accurately and increased the capture efficiency for a tactile recognition field. This tactile recognition field was 18.6 mm in length. There was consistency between the experienced users and novices under the visual cue effects. Finally, the study developed an applied design with touch feedback for touchscreen icons.

Keywords: HCI, Touchscreen icon, Touch feedback, Optimaltactile depth, Visual cues.

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3201 Improved Segmentation of Speckled Images Using an Arithmetic-to-Geometric Mean Ratio Kernel

Authors: J. Daba, J. Dubois

Abstract:

In this work, we improve a previously developed segmentation scheme aimed at extracting edge information from speckled images using a maximum likelihood edge detector. The scheme was based on finding a threshold for the probability density function of a new kernel defined as the arithmetic mean-to-geometric mean ratio field over a circular neighborhood set and, in a general context, is founded on a likelihood random field model (LRFM). The segmentation algorithm was applied to discriminated speckle areas obtained using simple elliptic discriminant functions based on measures of the signal-to-noise ratio with fractional order moments. A rigorous stochastic analysis was used to derive an exact expression for the cumulative density function of the probability density function of the random field. Based on this, an accurate probability of error was derived and the performance of the scheme was analysed. The improved segmentation scheme performed well for both simulated and real images and showed superior results to those previously obtained using the original LRFM scheme and standard edge detection methods. In particular, the false alarm probability was markedly lower than that of the original LRFM method with oversegmentation artifacts virtually eliminated. The importance of this work lies in the development of a stochastic-based segmentation, allowing an accurate quantification of the probability of false detection. Non visual quantification and misclassification in medical ultrasound speckled images is relatively new and is of interest to clinicians.

Keywords: Discriminant function, false alarm, segmentation, signal-to-noise ratio, skewness, speckle.

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3200 Real-Time Specific Weed Recognition System Using Histogram Analysis

Authors: Irshad Ahmad, Abdul Muhamin Naeem, Muhammad Islam

Abstract:

Information on weed distribution within the field is necessary to implement spatially variable herbicide application. Since hand labor is costly, an automated weed control system could be feasible. This paper deals with the development of an algorithm for real time specific weed recognition system based on Histogram Analysis of an image that is used for the weed classification. This algorithm is specifically developed to classify images into broad and narrow class for real-time selective herbicide application. The developed system has been tested on weeds in the lab, which have shown that the system to be very effectiveness in weed identification. Further the results show a very reliable performance on images of weeds taken under varying field conditions. The analysis of the results shows over 95 percent classification accuracy over 140 sample images (broad and narrow) with 70 samples from each category of weeds.

Keywords: Image Processing, real-time recognition, Weeddetection.

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3199 Modeling of Pulsatile Blood Flow in a Weak Magnetic Field

Authors: Chee Teck Phua, Gaëlle Lissorgues

Abstract:

Blood pulse is an important human physiological signal commonly used for the understanding of the individual physical health. Current methods of non-invasive blood pulse sensing require direct contact or access to the human skin. As such, the performances of these devices tend to vary with time and are subjective to human body fluids (e.g. blood, perspiration and skin-oil) and environmental contaminants (e.g. mud, water, etc). This paper proposes a simulation model for the novel method of non-invasive acquisition of blood pulse using the disturbance created by blood flowing through a localized magnetic field. The simulation model geometry represents a blood vessel, a permanent magnet, a magnetic sensor, surrounding tissues and air in 2-dimensional. In this model, the velocity and pressure fields in the blood stream are described based on Navier-Stroke equations and the walls of the blood vessel are assumed to have no-slip condition. The blood assumes a parabolic profile considering a laminar flow for blood in major artery near the skin. And the inlet velocity follows a sinusoidal equation. This will allow the computational software to compute the interactions between the magnetic vector potential generated by the permanent magnet and the magnetic nanoparticles in the blood. These interactions are simulated based on Maxwell equations at the location where the magnetic sensor is placed. The simulated magnetic field at the sensor location is found to assume similar sinusoidal waveform characteristics as the inlet velocity of the blood. The amplitude of the simulated waveforms at the sensor location are compared with physical measurements on human subjects and found to be highly correlated.

Keywords: Blood pulse, magnetic sensing, non-invasive measurement, magnetic disturbance.

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3198 The Model Establishment and Analysis of TRACE/FRAPTRAN for Chinshan Nuclear Power Plant Spent Fuel Pool

Authors: J. R. Wang, H. T. Lin, Y. S. Tseng, W. Y. Li, H. C. Chen, S. W. Chen, C. Shih

Abstract:

TRACE is developed by U.S. NRC for the nuclear power plants (NPPs) safety analysis. We focus on the establishment and application of TRACE/FRAPTRAN/SNAP models for Chinshan NPP (BWR/4) spent fuel pool in this research. The geometry is 12.17 m × 7.87 m × 11.61 m for the spent fuel pool. In this study, there are three TRACE/SNAP models: one-channel, two-channel, and multi-channel TRACE/SNAP model. Additionally, the cooling system failure of the spent fuel pool was simulated and analyzed by using the above models. According to the analysis results, the peak cladding temperature response was more accurate in the multi-channel TRACE/SNAP model. The results depicted that the uncovered of the fuels occurred at 2.7 day after the cooling system failed. In order to estimate the detailed fuel rods performance, FRAPTRAN code was used in this research. According to the results of FRAPTRAN, the highest cladding temperature located on the node 21 of the fuel rod (the highest node at node 23) and the cladding burst roughly after 3.7 day.

Keywords: TRACE, FRAPTRAN, SNAP, spent fuel pool.

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3197 Evaluation of A 50MW Two-Axis Tracking Photovoltaic Power Plant for AL-Jagbob, Libya: Energetic, Economic, and Environmental Impact Analysis

Authors: Y. Aldali, F. Ahwide

Abstract:

This paper investigates the application of large scale (LS-PV) two-axis tracking photovoltaic power plant in Al-Jagbob, Libya. A 50MW PV-grid connected (two-axis tracking) power plant design in Al-Jagbob, Libya has been carried out presently. A hetero-junction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) type PV module has been selected and modeled. A Microsoft Excel-VBA program has been constructed to compute slope radiation, dew-point, sky temperature, and then cell temperature, maximum power output and module efficiency for this system, for tracking system. The results for energy production show that the total energy output is 128.5 GWh/year. The average module efficiency is 16.6%. The electricity generation capacity factor (CF) and solar capacity factor (SCF) were found to be 29.3% and 70.4% respectively. A 50MW two axis tracking power plant with a total energy output of 128.5 GWh/year would reduce CO2 pollution by 85,581 tonnes of each year. The payback time for the proposed LS-PV photovoltaic power plant was found to be 4 years.

Keywords: Large PV power plant, solar energy, environmental impact, Dual-axis tracking system.

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3196 Underrepresentation of Women in Management Information Systems: Gender Differences in Key Environmental Barriers

Authors: Asli Yagmur Akbulut

Abstract:

Despite a robust and growing job market and lucrative salaries, there is a global shortage of Information Technology (IT) professionals. To make matters worse, women continue to be underrepresented in the IT workforce and among IT degree holders. In today’s knowledge based economy and society, it is extremely important to increase the presence of women in the IT field. In order to do so, it is necessary to reduce entry barriers and attract more women to pursue degrees in various IT fields including the field of Management Information Systems (MIS). Even though MIS is considered to have a more feminine nature, women still tend to avoid majoring in this field. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research that investigates the specific factors that may deter women from pursuing a degree in MIS. To address this research gap, this study examined a set of key environmental barriers that might prevent women from pursuing an MIS degree and explored whether there were any gender differences between female and male students in terms of these key barriers. Based on a survey of 280 students enrolled in an introductory level MIS course, the study empirically confirmed that there were significant differences between male and female students in terms of the key contextual barriers perceived. Female students demonstrated major concerns about gender discrimination related barriers, whereas male students were more concerned about negative social influences. Both male and female students were equally concerned about not being able to fit in well with other MIS majors. The findings have important implications for MIS programs, as the information gained can be used to design and implement specific intervention strategies to overcome the barriers and attract larger pools of women to the MIS discipline. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings, implications, and future research directions.

Keywords: Gender differences, MIS major, underrepresentation, women in IT.

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3195 Design of Encoding Calculator Software for Huffman and Shannon-Fano Algorithms

Authors: Wilson Chanhemo, Henry. R. Mgombelo, Omar F Hamad, T. Marwala

Abstract:

This paper presents a design of source encoding calculator software which applies the two famous algorithms in the field of information theory- the Shannon-Fano and the Huffman schemes. This design helps to easily realize the algorithms without going into a cumbersome, tedious and prone to error manual mechanism of encoding the signals during the transmission. The work describes the design of the software, how it works, comparison with related works, its efficiency, its usefulness in the field of information technology studies and the future prospects of the software to engineers, students, technicians and alike. The designed “Encodia" software has been developed, tested and found to meet the intended requirements. It is expected that this application will help students and teaching staff in their daily doing of information theory related tasks. The process is ongoing to modify this tool so that it can also be more intensely useful in research activities on source coding.

Keywords: Coding techniques, Coding algorithms, Codingefficiency, Encodia, Encoding software.

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3194 Thermo-mechanical Behavior of Pressure Tube of Indian PHWR at 20 bar Pressure

Authors: Gopal Nandan, P. K. Sahooa, Ravi Kumara, B Chatterjeeb, D. Mukhopadhyayb, H. G. Leleb

Abstract:

In a nuclear reactor Loss of Coolant accident (LOCA) considers wide range of postulated damage or rupture of pipe in the heat transport piping system. In the case of LOCA with/without failure of emergency core cooling system in a Pressurised Heavy water Reactor, the Pressure Tube (PT) temperature could rise significantly due to fuel heat up and gross mismatch of the heat generation and heat removal in the affected channel. The extent and nature of deformation is important from reactor safety point of view. Experimental set-ups have been designed and fabricated to simulate ballooning (radial deformation) of PT for 220 MWe IPHWRs. Experiments have been conducted by covering the CT by ceramic fibers and then by submerging CT in water of voided PTs. In both the experiments, it is observed that ballooning initiates at a temperature around 665´┐¢C and complete contact between PT and Caldaria Tube (CT) occurs at around 700´┐¢C approximately. The strain rate is found to be 0.116% per second. The structural integrity of PT is retained (no breach) for all the experiments. The PT heatup is found to be arrested after the contact between PT and CT, thus establishing moderator acting as an efficient heat sink for IPHWRs.

Keywords: Pressure Tube, Calandria Tube, Thermo-mechanicaldeformation, Boiling heat transfer, Reactor safety

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3193 Radiation Damage as Nonlinear Evolution of Complex System

Authors: Pavlo Selyshchev

Abstract:

Irradiated material is a typical example of a complex system with nonlinear coupling between its elements. During irradiation the radiation damage is developed and this development has bifurcations and qualitatively different kinds of behavior. The accumulation of primary defects in irradiated crystals is considered in frame work of nonlinear evolution of complex system. The thermo-concentration nonlinear feedback is carried out as a mechanism of self-oscillation development. It is shown that there are two ways of the defect density evolution under stationary irradiation. The first is the accumulation of defects; defect density monotonically grows and tends to its stationary state for some system parameters. Another way that takes place for opportune parameters is the development of self-oscillations of the defect density. The stationary state, its stability and type are found. The bifurcation values of parameters (environment temperature, defect generation rate, etc.) are obtained. The frequency of the selfoscillation and the conditions of their development is found and rated. It is shown that defect density, heat fluxes and temperature during self-oscillations can reach much higher values than the expected steady-state values. It can lead to a change of typical operation and an accident, e.g. for nuclear equipment.

Keywords: Irradiation, Primary Defects, Solids, Self-oscillation.

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3192 Cloud Forest Characteristics of Khao Nan, Thailand

Authors: P. Sangarun, W. Srisang, K. Jaroensutasinee, M. Jaroensutasinee

Abstract:

A better understanding of cloud forest characteristic in a tropical montane cloud forest at Khao Nan, Nakhon Si Thammarat on climatic, vegetation, soil and hydrology were studied during 18-21 April 2007. The results showed that as air temperature at Sanyen cloud forest increased, the percent relative humidity decreased. The amount of solar radiation at Sanyen cloud forest had a positive association with the amount of solar radiation at Parah forest. The amount of solar radiation at Sanyen cloud forest was very low with a range of 0-19 W/m2. On the other hand, the amount of solar radiation at Parah forest was high with a range of 0-1000 W/m2. There was no difference between leaf width, leaf length, leaf thickness and leaf area with increasing in elevations. As the elevations increased, bush height and tree height decreased. There was no association between bush width and bush ratio with elevation. As the elevations increased, the percent epiphyte cover and the percent soil moisture increased but water temperature, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen decreased. The percent soil moistures and organic contents were higher at elevations above 900 m than elevations below.

Keywords: Cloud forest, climate, vegetation, soil, hydrology.

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3191 Photomechanical Analysis of Wooden Testing Bodies under Flexural Loadings

Authors: J. Gazzola, I. M. Dal Fabbro, J. Soriano, M. V. G. Silva, S. Rodrigues

Abstract:

Application of wood in rural construction is diffused all around the world since remote times. However, its inclusion in structural design deserves strong support from broad knowledge of material properties. The pertinent literature reveals the application of optical methods in determining the complete field displacement on bodies exhibiting regular as well as irregular surfaces. The use of moiré techniques in experimental mechanics consists in analyzing the patterns generated on the body surface before and after deformation. The objective of this research work is to study the qualitative deformation behavior of wooden testing specimens under specific loading situations. The experiment setup follows the literature description of shadow moiré methods. Results indicate strong anisotropy influence of the generated displacement field. Important qualitative as well as quantitative stress and strain distribution were obtained wooden members which are applicable to rural constructions.

Keywords: Moiré methods, wooden structural material, rural constructions.

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3190 GPS Devices to Increase Efficiency of Indian Auto-Rickshaw Segment

Authors: Sanchay Vaidya, Sourabh Gupta, Gouresh Singhal

Abstract:

There are various modes of transport in metro cities in India, auto-rickshaws being one of them. Auto-rickshaws provide connectivity to all the places in the city offering last mile connectivity. Among all the modes of transport the auto-rickshaw industry is the most unorganized and inefficient. Although unions exist in different cities they aren’t good enough to cope up with the upcoming advancements in the field of technology. An introduction of simple technology in this field may do wonders and help increase the revenues. This paper aims to organize this segment under a single umbrella using GPS devices and mobile phones. The paper includes surveys of about 300 auto-rickshaw drivers and 1000 plus commuters across 6 metro cities in India. Carrying out research and analysis provides a base for the development of this model and implementation of this innovative technique, which is discussed in this paper in detail with ample emphasis given on the implementation of this model.

Keywords: Auto-rickshaws, Business Model, GPS device, Mobile application.

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3189 Antecedent Factors of Ethical Ideologies in Moral Judgment: Evidence from the Mixed Method Study

Authors: N. Mustamil, M. Quaddus

Abstract:

This research investigates the factors that influence moral judgments when dealing with ethical dilemmas in the organizational context. It also investigates the antecedents of individual ethical ideology (idealism and relativism). A mixed method study, which combines qualitative (field study) and quantitative (survey) approaches, was used in this study. An initial model was developed first, which was then fine-tuned based on field studies. Data were collected from managers in Malaysian large organizations. The results of this study reveal that in-group collectivism culture, power distance culture, parental values, and religiosity were significant as antecedents of ethical ideology. However, direct effects of these variables on moral judgment were not significant. Furthermore, the results of this study confirm the significant effects of ethical ideology on moral judgment. This study provides valuable insight into evaluating the validity of existing theory as proposed in the literature and offers significant practical implications.

Keywords: Antecedents Factors, Ethical Ideology, Mixed Method, Moral Judgment

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3188 Fabrication of Nanoengineered Radiation Shielding Multifunctional Polymeric Sandwich Composites

Authors: Nasim Abuali Galehdari, Venkat Mani, Ajit D. Kelkar

Abstract:

Space Radiation has become one of the major factors in successful long duration space exploration. Exposure to space radiation not only can affect the health of astronauts but also can disrupt or damage materials and electronics. Hazards to materials include degradation of properties, such as, modulus, strength, or glass transition temperature. Electronics may experience single event effects, gate rupture, burnout of field effect transistors and noise. Presently aluminum is the major component in most of the space structures due to its lightweight and good structural properties. However, aluminum is ineffective at blocking space radiation. Therefore, most of the past research involved studying at polymers which contain large amounts of hydrogen. Again, these materials are not structural materials and would require large amounts of material to achieve the structural properties needed. One of the materials to alleviate this problem is polymeric composite materials, which has good structural properties and use polymers that contained large amounts of hydrogen. This paper presents steps involved in fabrication of multi-functional hybrid sandwich panels that can provide beneficial radiation shielding as well as structural strength. Multifunctional hybrid sandwich panels were manufactured using vacuum assisted resin transfer molding process and were subjected to radiation treatment. Study indicates that various nanoparticles including Boron Nano powder, Boron Carbide and Gadolinium nanoparticles can be successfully used to block the space radiation without sacrificing the structural integrity.

Keywords: Multi-functional, polymer composites, radiation shielding, sandwich composites.

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3187 Combination of Standard Secondary Raw Materials and New Production Waste Materials in Green Concrete Technology

Authors: M. Tazky, R. Hela, P. Novosad, L. Osuska

Abstract:

This paper deals with the possibility of safe incorporation fluidised bed combustion fly ash (waste material) into cement matrix together with next commonly used secondary raw material, which is high-temperature fly ash. Both of these materials have a very high pozzolanic ability, and the right combination could bring important improvements in both the physico-mechanical properties and the better durability of a cement composite. This paper tries to determine the correct methodology for designing green concrete by using modern methods measuring rheology of fresh concrete and following hydration processes. The use of fluidised bed combustion fly ash in cement composite production as an admixture is not currently common, but there are some real possibilities for its potential. The most striking negative aspect is its chemical composition which supports the development of new product formation, influencing the durability of the composite. Another disadvantage is the morphology of grains, which have a negative effect on consistency. This raises the question of how this waste can be used in concrete production to emphasize its positive properties and eliminate negatives. The focal point of the experiment carried out on cement pastes was particularly on the progress of hydration processes, aiming for the possible acceleration of pozzolanic reactions of both types of fly ash.

Keywords: High-temperature fly ash, fluidised bed combustion fly ash, pozzolanic, CaO (calcium oxide), rheology.

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3186 Mechanical Properties of Ordinary Portland Cement Modified Cold Bitumen Emulsion Mixture

Authors: Hayder Kamil Shanbara, Felicite Ruddock, William Atherton, Nassier A. Nassir

Abstract:

Cold bitumen emulsion mixture (CBEM) offers a series benefits as compared with hot mix asphalt (HMA); these include environmental factors, energy saving, the resolution of logistical challenges that can characterise hot mix, and the potential to reserve funds. However, this mixture has some problems similar to any bituminous mixtures as it has low early strength, long curing time that needed to obtain the maximum performance, high air voids and considered inferior to HMA. Thus, CBEM has been used in limited applications such as lightly trafficked roads, footways and reinstatements. This laboratory study describes the development of CBEM using ordinary Portland cement (OPC) instead of the traditional mineral filler. Stiffness modulus, moisture damage and temperature sensitivity tests were used to evaluate the mechanical properties of the produced mixtures. The study concluded that there is a substantial improvement in the mechanical properties and moisture damage resistance of CBEMs containing OPC. Also, the produced cement modified CBEM shows a considerable lower thermal sensitivity than the conventional CBEM.

Keywords: Cold bitumen emulsion mixture, moisture damage, OPC, stiffness modulus, temperature sensitivity.

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3185 Separation of Polyphenolics and Sugar by Ultrafiltration: Effects of Operating Conditions on Fouling and Diafiltration

Authors: Diqiao S. Wei, M. Hossain, Zaid S. Saleh

Abstract:

Polyphenolics and sugar are the components of many fruit juices. In this work, the performance of ultra-filtration (UF) for separating phenolic compounds from apple juice was studied by performing batch experiments in a membrane module with an area of 0.1 m2 and fitted with a regenerated cellulose membrane of 1 kDa MWCO. The effects of various operating conditions: transmembrane pressure (3, 4, 5 bar), temperature (30, 35, 40 ºC), pH (2, 3, 4, 5), feed concentration (3, 5, 7, 10, 15 ºBrix for apple juice) and feed flow rate (1, 1.5, 1.8 L/min) on the performance were determined. The optimum operating conditions were: transmembrane pressure 4 bar, temperature 30 ºC, feed flow rate 1 – 1.8 L/min, pH 3 and 10 Brix (apple juice). After performing ultrafiltration under these conditions, the concentration of polyphenolics in retentate was increased by a factor of up to 2.7 with up to 70% recovered in the permeate and with approx. 20% of the sugar in that stream.. Application of diafiltration (addition of water to the concentrate) can regain the flux by a factor of 1.5, which has been decreased due to fouling. The material balance performed on the process has shown the amount of deposits on the membrane and the extent of fouling in the system. In conclusion, ultrafiltration has been demonstrated as a potential technology to separate the polyphenolics and sugars from their mixtures and can be applied to remove sugars from fruit juice.

Keywords: Fouling, membrane, polyphenols, ultrafiltration.

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3184 Localizing Acoustic Touch Impacts using Zip-stuffing in Complex k-space Domain

Authors: R. Bremananth, Andy W. H. Khong, A. Chitra

Abstract:

Visualizing sound and noise often help us to determine an appropriate control over the source localization. Near-field acoustic holography (NAH) is a powerful tool for the ill-posed problem. However, in practice, due to the small finite aperture size, the discrete Fourier transform, FFT based NAH couldn-t predict the activeregion- of-interest (AROI) over the edges of the plane. Theoretically few approaches were proposed for solving finite aperture problem. However most of these methods are not quite compatible for the practical implementation, especially near the edge of the source. In this paper, a zip-stuffing extrapolation approach has suggested with 2D Kaiser window. It is operated on wavenumber complex space to localize the predicted sources. We numerically form a practice environment with touch impact databases to test the localization of sound source. It is observed that zip-stuffing aperture extrapolation and 2D window with evanescent components provide more accuracy especially in the small aperture and its derivatives.

Keywords: Acoustic source localization, Near-field acoustic holography (NAH), FFT, Extrapolation, k-space wavenumber errors.

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3183 A New Ridge Orientation based Method of Computation for Feature Extraction from Fingerprint Images

Authors: Jayadevan R., Jayant V. Kulkarni, Suresh N. Mali, Hemant K. Abhyankar

Abstract:

An important step in studying the statistics of fingerprint minutia features is to reliably extract minutia features from the fingerprint images. A new reliable method of computation for minutiae feature extraction from fingerprint images is presented. A fingerprint image is treated as a textured image. An orientation flow field of the ridges is computed for the fingerprint image. To accurately locate ridges, a new ridge orientation based computation method is proposed. After ridge segmentation a new method of computation is proposed for smoothing the ridges. The ridge skeleton image is obtained and then smoothed using morphological operators to detect the features. A post processing stage eliminates a large number of false features from the detected set of minutiae features. The detected features are observed to be reliable and accurate.

Keywords: Minutia, orientation field, ridge segmentation, textured image.

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3182 Fuzzy Control of Thermally Isolated Greenhouse Building by Utilizing Underground Heat Exchanger and Outside Weather Conditions

Authors: Raghad Alhusari, Farag Omar, Moustafa Fadel

Abstract:

A traditional greenhouse is a metal frame agricultural building used for cultivation plants in a controlled environment isolated from external climatic changes. Using greenhouses in agriculture is an efficient way to reduce the water consumption, where agriculture field is considered the biggest water consumer world widely. Controlling greenhouse environment yields better productivity of plants but demands an increase of electric power. Although various control approaches have been used towards greenhouse automation, most of them are applied to traditional greenhouses with ventilation fans and/or evaporation cooling system. Such approaches are still demanding high energy and water consumption. The aim of this research is to develop a fuzzy control system that minimizes water and energy consumption by utilizing outside weather conditions and underground heat exchanger to maintain the optimum climate of the greenhouse. The proposed control system is implemented on an experimental model of thermally isolated greenhouse structure with dimensions of 6x5x2.8 meters. It uses fans for extracting heat from the ground heat exchanger system, motors for automatic open/close of the greenhouse windows and LED as lighting system. The controller is integrated also with environmental condition sensors. It was found that using the air-to-air horizontal ground heat exchanger with 90 mm diameter and 2 mm thickness placed 2.5 m below the ground surface results in decreasing the greenhouse temperature of 3.28 ˚C which saves around 3 kW of consumed energy. It also eliminated the water consumption needed in evaporation cooling systems which are traditionally used for cooling the greenhouse environment.

Keywords: Automation, earth-to-air heat exchangers, fuzzy control, greenhouse, sustainable buildings.

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3181 Globally Convergent Edge-preserving Reconstruction with Contour-line Smoothing

Authors: Marc C. Robini, Pierre-Jean Viverge, Yuemin Zhu, Jianhua Luo

Abstract:

The standard approach to image reconstruction is to stabilize the problem by including an edge-preserving roughness penalty in addition to faithfulness to the data. However, this methodology produces noisy object boundaries and creates a staircase effect. The existing attempts to favor the formation of smooth contour lines take the edge field explicitly into account; they either are computationally expensive or produce disappointing results. In this paper, we propose to incorporate the smoothness of the edge field in an implicit way by means of an additional penalty term defined in the wavelet domain. We also derive an efficient half-quadratic algorithm to solve the resulting optimization problem, including the case when the data fidelity term is non-quadratic and the cost function is nonconvex. Numerical experiments show that our technique preserves edge sharpness while smoothing contour lines; it produces visually pleasing reconstructions which are quantitatively better than those obtained without wavelet-domain constraints.

Keywords:

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3180 Speed Sensorless IFOC of PMSM Based On Adaptive Luenberger Observer

Authors: Grouz Faten, Sbita Lassaâd

Abstract:

In this paper, Speed Sensorless Indirect Field Oriented Control (IFOC) of a Permanent Magnet Synchronous machine (PMSM) is studied. The closed loop scheme of the drive system utilizes fuzzy speed and current controllers. Due to the well known drawbacks of the speed sensor, an algorithm is proposed in this paper to eliminate it. In fact, based on the model of the PMSM, the stator currents and rotor speed are estimated simultaneously using adaptive Luenberger observer for currents and MRAS (Model Reference Adaptive System) observer for rotor speed. To overcome the sensivity of this algorithm against parameter variation, adaptive for on line stator resistance tuning is proposed. The validity of the proposed method is verified by an extensive simulation work.

Keywords: PMSM, Indirect Field Oriented Control, fuzzy speed and currents controllers, Adaptive Luenberger observer, MRAS.

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3179 Solubility of Water in CO2 Mixtures at Pipeline Operation Conditions

Authors: Mohammad Ahmad, Sander Gersen, Erwin Wilbers

Abstract:

Carbon capture, transport and underground storage have become a major solution to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants and other large CO2 sources. A big part of this captured CO2 stream is transported at high pressure dense phase conditions and stored in offshore underground depleted oil and gas fields. CO2 is also transported in offshore pipelines to be used for enhanced oil and gas recovery. The captured CO2 stream with impurities may contain water that causes severe corrosion problems, flow assurance failure and might damage valves and instrumentations. Thus, free water formation should be strictly prevented. The purpose of this work is to study the solubility of water in pure CO2 and in CO2 mixtures under real pipeline pressure (90-150 bar) and temperature operation conditions (5-35°C). A set up was constructed to generate experimental data. The results show the solubility of water in CO2 mixtures increasing with the increase of the temperature or/and with the increase in pressure. A drop in water solubility in CO2 is observed in the presence of impurities. The data generated were then used to assess the capabilities of two mixture models: the GERG-2008 model and the EOS-CG model. By generating the solubility data, this study contributes to determine the maximum allowable water content in CO2 pipelines.

Keywords: Carbon capture and storage, water solubility, equation of states.

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3178 Simulation of Roughness Shape and Distribution Effects on Rarefied and Compressible Flows at Slip Flow Regime

Authors: M. Hakak Khadem, S. Hossainpour, M. Shams

Abstract:

A numerical simulation of micro Poiseuille flow has performed for rarefied and compressible flow at slip flow regimes. The wall roughness is simulated in two cases with triangular microelements and random micro peaks distributed on wall surfaces to study the effects of roughness shape and distribution on flow field. Two values of Mach and Knudsen numbers have used to investigate the effects of rarefaction as well as compressibility. The numerical results have also checked with available theoretical and experimental relations and good agreements has achieved. High influence of roughness shape can be seen for both compressible and incompressible rarefied flows. In addition it is found that rarefaction has more significant effect on flow field in microchannels with higher relative roughness. It is also found that compressibility has more significant effects on Poiseuille number when relative roughness increases.

Keywords: Relative roughness, slip flow, Poiseuille number, roughness distribution.

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