Intelligent Manufacturing and Energy Sustainability

In this work, the performance of different multi-layer barrier constructions in attenuating noise has been studied experimentally. Machine-induced low-frequency noise within the frequency range of 100–500 Hz is focused in this work. Six different multi-layer barrier constructions have been employed for this purpose. Wood has been used as the rigid, reflective layer while glass wool and PE foam has been used as the soft, absorbing layers. An enclosure with five fixed walls and one flexible wall containing the noise barrier has been constructed to perform the experiments. A CASELLA CEL-62X Sound Pressure Level meter has been used to measure sound pressure at different frequencies. Results indicate that the transmission losses are not higher than 18 dB for the frequency range of interest. Results also reveal that triple-layer wooden barrier has superior performance in attenuating low-frequency noise although sandwich barriers are more suitable for higher frequencies.

A two-dimensional numerical technique has been adopted to study the temperature rise, chip morphology, plastic stress/strain, strain hardening, and softening effect on the selected steel grades, namely S-1006, S-7, and S-4340 in the planing process. The material properties and constants are instituted on the popular Johnson–Cook (JC) constitutive model. A comparative analysis has shown, the maximum temperature rises in the case of S-7 (641.32 °C) followed by S-4340 (478.96 °C) S-1006 (287.19 °C). The temperature rise is mainly found in the secondary shear deformation zone and rise in shear stress found in the primary deformation zone. The plastic deformation is found facile in the case of S-1006 anticipated due to less dislocation within the crystal structure and work hardening effect found to be maximum in case of S-7 and the same is confirmed from the JC model material constants. It is believed that the simulation results may help in predicting machining uncertainties.

Diametral error plays a significant role in determining the quality of the machined component. It becomes more important for long-slendered workpiece with slenderness ratio greater than six. In the present work, an attempt is made to estimate the diametral error analytically during simultaneous turning process. The cutting tools are kept opposite to one another, so that the cutting forces act opposite to each of them. Euler–Bernoulli beam theory was applied to determine the cutting tool deflection. The workpiece was assumed as a propped cantilever beam. The diametral error was determined for various slenderness ratios of the workpiece. It was revealed that the diametral accuracy increased when the slenderness ratio decreased. This is due to the fact that lesser length-to-diameter ratio contributed to increased rigidity of the workpiece, resulting in the reduction of diametral error. The maximum and minimum diametral error occurred for the workpiece slenderness ratio of 8 and 4, respectively. Further, the results of the developed analytical model were compared with the published literature, and a good agreement was found.

In this experimental study, the possibility of improvement of conventional electric heater to reduce energy loss has been investigated. In order to do so, a modified electric heater construction has been employed, one covered with glass wool insulation. The temperature profile inside the heater has been measured both in vertical and radial direction with the help of K-type thermocouples. Three different food items, namely, Water, Minicate Rice, and Red Lentil, have been used to test the performance of the modified insulated heater compared to the conventional one. Results indicate that it is possible to save energy up to 43.9%, 32%, and 23.08% for the above-mentioned three food items, respectively, by using the insulated heater. However, inconsistency in the amount of energy-saving is observed. It has also been observed that the energy-saving for boiling water increases with increasing amount of water, suggesting that the insulated heater is more efficient for higher cooking volume compared to the conventional one.

Advancements in fuel curtailment have created a new perspective towards finding out new solutions to enhance the vehicle’s fuel consumption and emission diagnostics. The objective of sorting out new alternatives has led to the introduction of new formats of saving fuel. Brown’s gas, which involves the production of oxy-hydrogen gas (HHO) on demand by virtue of an electrolyzer, is one such alternative. In two-wheeler vehicles, the HHO module can be installed anywhere within the confines of the vehicle body; however, this pales out the design profile of the vehicle as it produces hindrance regarding space availability, visual appearance and physical tampering. After analyzing the body of a conventional two-wheeler, a novel design is presented where the fuel tank entails an auxiliary HHO generator in it without compromising any of the above-mentioned factors. An electrolyzer reactor with minimum possible volume factor was designed and fabricated. The unit was successfully installed within the left forward corner of the fuel tank and connected to the engine assembly. The test used to evaluate fuel economy here was an equivalent to the World Motorcycle Test Cycle (WMTC), where the drive cycle was performed with the complete motorcycle operated on a chassis dynamometer. The vehicle’s performance with and without the HHO generator was tested for increased fuel efficiency.

Solar energy has enormous potential to fulfil the energy requirements of the world and can be extracted using solar cells. However, the solar cells are affected by poor efficiency and further affected by wind speed, orientation of the panel, temperature and dust deposition. There are different cleaning technologies devised by many industry experts to clean the solar panels. However, they are facing drawbacks when deployed in the solar farms. An efficient cleaning system, along with an added cooling system, must be devised so that the solar panels must be cleaned and cooled to maximize the energy production. This paper presents a low-cost, fully automated, smart, innovative dust cleaning and cooling system for photovoltaic (PV) panels. The system is designed, fabricated, fully automated using programmable logic controller (PLC) and tested successfully. The automation procedure is explained in detail. A battery-charging kiosk, capable of charging two, 24 V lead–acid batteries embedded within this prototype, shall provide clean energy in a sustainable manner to the rural communities of the developing nations. The user can check the status of the battery such as battery voltage, battery temperature and state of charge on the human–machine interface (HMI) panel while charging the batteries.

In the scenario, for cutting pipes, more human effort is required and the time consumption is more. So, in order to minimize the time and labour, in this work, efforts are made to design and fabricate a four-way multi-hacksaw cutting machine. The main objective of the work is to design an efficient four-way multi-hacksaw cutting machine which suits the industrial applications like cutting thin metal bars, wood, PVC pipes, etc. The machine is designed and fabricated using the principle of slider-crank mechanism, where the slider is replaced with hacksaw. Here, a disc-type crank operates the hacksaw cutter to reciprocate in the guideway to ensure the cutting operation. The size and shape of the machine were finalized by considering the proper design and kinematic analysis. Also, the project is aimed to prepare a machine with less vibration, easy in operation and easy in mobility. The suggested machine with eight simultaneously cuts can improve the rate of cutting.

In the present study, a critical review of the adhesion behavior of plasma sprayed coatings is discussed. A study revealed that substrate preparation, coating technique, surface roughness, solidification mechanism, coating thickness, plasma temperature, the coefficient of thermal expansion, of the top coat and bond coat have a significant influence on the adhesion strength. A great deal of discussion is made on the mechanical strength of the plasma sprayed coatings.

The present research focused on the polymer hybrid composite fabrication and its characterization. Kevlar fibers (also called Aramid fibers, KF) are mixed with Sansevieria trifasciata fiber (snake plant leaf fibers, STF) to improve the performance of the epoxy matrix. Former fiber is synthetic fiber and the later is natural fibers are combined proportionately by the rule of mixtures KF and STF treated fiber systems. Wet-hand layup was used to organize systems with weight ratios of KF/STF for treated, viz. 1:0; 0.5:0.5; 0.75:0.25; 0.25:0.75; 0:1 (typically named as A, B, C, D, and E systems from the left). It was found that tensile strength for system-D (treated) was found improvement due to the fact that dust-free, rough, and improved surface area. Impact strength was found significant for the system-D when compared with others. The interface and voids at the fracture surface were improved for the systems C and D which were observed from the SEM images. Chemical resistance found good all the samples except carbon tetrachloride due to the hit of carbon atoms which consequently imparted erosion of the fiber out of the matrix.

Noise from exhaust system of automobile is the major concern and cause of noise pollution. That is why it is a major concern and important area of research and development. Muffler is an important part of the engine which is used to minimize sound from exhaust, backpressure that affects fuel efficiency, noise as well as emission. The proposed design of muffler is chosen through so much of iteration on different designs. This paper mainly concerns to establish the relation between the pressure loss and the exhaust gas inlet velocity. So, the backpressure must be kept minimum. It also deals with the design methodology of muffler which will be an improvement to the existing design of muffler, improvement in terms of design, pressure loss, and noise level. It also focuses on modern cad tools and simulation tools which provide maximum advantage for optimizing the design in short time and for better result.

Searching for the parking space is a time-consuming task while visiting for shopping or unknown cities. Real-time parking management gets benefited for the development of the smart city and also reduces time for finding the parking place. In this chapter, different two types of modules for car parking are simulated using a combination of Hough transform, edge detection, and color enhancement method. Different car parking modules are circular shape-based: (i) parallel parking with a different radius and (ii) angle parking with the same radius. Real-time video is captured using an android smartphone with an IP camera. The proposed research work can enhance the solution for real-time parking solution in big malls and theater. Limitation and future scope of this will give motivation toward research work on an intelligent transportation system (ITS) development in India. For small-scale version here, we have used toy cars and bus with a different color for parking modules.

Water spray technique is used in many applications like cooling, humidifying, and firefighting applications. The performances of 1, 4, and 9 number of nozzles under horizontal parallel, counter, and vertical flow arrangement have been experimentally analyzed for air volume flow rate from 0.34 to 2.15 m3/s, room temperature from 28.5 to 30.2 °C, and relative humidity between 59 and 78%. The data show clear trend between relative humidity and number of nozzles. 9.5, 10.5, and 20% higher humidification by percentage achieved for the highest number of nozzles than lower number of nozzles in vertical, parallel, and counter flow arrangement, respectively. However, flow evaporation is greatly affected than mist evaporation performance under parallel flow placement at single-nozzle arrangement. Vertical arrangement with 9 nozzles showed 20.3% higher relative humidity than 1 nozzle under counter flow arrangement.

The vibration condition monitoring is the process of monitoring the vibration signals in machinery to identify a significant change in the development of fault. Gears are important rotary devices for power and torque transmission. Study on gear teeth relationship is considered as one of the most complicated applications because the speed, load conditions, and application cause different failures, leading to non-stationary operating conditions. Hence, an appropriate signal processing technique to identify the gear fault diagnosis plays a vital role in condition monitoring system. This work attempts the Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) to identify the effect of the new time–frequency distribution, which increases the performance of fault diagnosis in gear. Also, the method using HHT is compared with fast Fourier transform (FFT). As a novel approach, the statistical feature called energy was calculated for all intrinsic mode functions (IMF) obtained from the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) of the signal which is suitable for the selection of IMF for applying HHT. The fault diagnosis of gear is done clearly using the present approach.

Variable-frequency drives (VFDs) are widely used in the industry and off-grid PV-based pumping applications due to their versatile operation. The operating performance of VFDs in the given environment is mainly affected by switching losses and generation of acoustic noise. During the development of PWM techniques of VSI, both the attributes are considered separately. In this paper, different methods aimed at switching loss reduction and acoustic noise reduction are reported so that both the operating requirement of drives are satisfied. Different bus clamping methods such as DPWM0, DPWM1, DPWM2, and DPWM3 are studied and compared. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of these schemes in reducing inverter switching losses and reducing acoustic noise of variable-frequency drive.

This paper proposes an improvement of genetic algorithm (GA) for optimization of production planning and scheduling in the manufacturing industry. The problem is dynamic, combinatorial and multidimensional in nature with factors like production selection, production line allotment, manufacturing sequence, order quantity, etc., to be solved in sync. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed GA are demonstrated by a case study. Selection of parameters of the proposed GA is done using Taguchi experiment method. Performance comparison is done using six optimization solvers, namely pattern search solver, simulated annealing, tabu search, stochastic gradient descent, ant colony optimization and traditional genetic algorithm method.

The present work addresses the problem of automated calibration system for residential water meters, by using artificial vision. The project consists of a closed water flow circuit powered by a low-power pump; the data from water meter is taken by the computer using a USB camera; a calculation is made based on the time it takes to fully rotate the smaller-scale needle of the meter to determine the water flow in real time. At the same time, the actual flow data of the reference standard element, which is a rotameter, is obtained by a second camera. These values are compared to calculate an error that determines the adjustment action on the water meter.

It presents the simulation through the Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) technique of a flow plant. The mentioned system is designed in the LabVIEW software and implemented in an FPGA. As a result of the system tests performed in manual mode, an absolute error of 0.02 is obtained in the simulated instruments. In addition, two controllers are designed (continuous and discrete), and the results indicate that the system works in real time and does not generate disturbances in response to the implemented controls.

In this work, recent navigation systems rely on Kalman filtering for the fusion of data obtained from Global Positioning System (GPS) and the inertial navigation system (INS). The navigation combination offers consistent solutions of navigation by avoiding the generation of position errors with the consideration of time in case of INS. In current scenario, Kalman filtering INS/GPS method of integration contain some limitations related to stochastic error models of inertial sensors and the immunity to noise. The aim of this paper is to propose a system integration technique for the fusion of data from INS and GPS with the architecture of alternative general regression neural network (GRNN). The wavelet multi-resolution analysis (WMRA) is processed for comparing the position outputs of GPS and INS at various levels of resolution. The GR-ANN module is trained for predicting the position error of INS and offers vehicle positioning with increased accuracy.

This article aims to analyze and discuss the presentation of the HS film between two conducting LR elliptical plates. The surface of bearing characterized by stochastic averaging model is assumed to be rough (longitudinally). The stochastically average type equation of Reynolds is solved with the boundary conditions concerned in order to obtain the characteristics of the bearing performance like pressure distribution and load-carrying capacity. The results establish that LR is more helpful as compared to transverse roughness. The calculated results are presented graphically and from this presentation it is clearly seen that the hydromagnetic lubrication substantially maximizes the load of the system of bearing. In addition, the LCC is maximized in the case of (−ve) skewed roughness due to increased plates conductivity and standard deviation associated with the Longitudinally Roughness. Moreover, in the case of (−ve) skewed roughness and (−ve) variance, the adverse effect of variance (+ve), positive skewness and aspect ratio of the plates can be compensated to some extent by the appropriate combination of conductivity and magnetization. Thus, this study makes it clear that longitudinal roughness must be given due respect while preparing the bearing systems.

The use of renewable fuels is one approach for sustainable energy future for the world, with the crude oil prices going up day by day, and also keeping environment concerns in mind we need to look for other alternatives. The aim of this study is to identify the optimum blend ratio and compare the performance and emission characteristics of diesel with biodiesel and its blends and also compare theoretical values with the experimental values. In this study, a four stroke twin cylinder diesel engine is created in Diesel-RK software, and the engine is tested for various performance parameters like brake power, brake mean effective pressure, brake thermal efficiency, and brake specific fuel consumption, and emission characteristics like NOx emissions, CO2 emission, and particulate matter emission are noted, and then different biofuels like rapeseed methyl esters and soybean methyl esters are designed along with different blends (B100, B20, B40), after obtaining the theoretical values from the software the same parameters are obtained from an actual engine of similar setup as that of the software and then the values are compared. From the simulations, it was seen that the performance and emission characteristics of diesel were better than biodiesel and its blend. B20 blend is the optimum blend ratio.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a process that involves building up thin layers of material, one by one creating a three-dimensional object from a digital file. The technology can produce complex shapes that are not possible with traditional casting and machining methods, or subtractive techniques. Hybrid AM is the process in which the AM process takes place on an existing part in the AM chamber. The existing part could have been manufactured by the traditional subtractive manufacturing process. The powder bed fusion process includes the following commonly used printing techniques such as direct metal laser sintering, electron beam melting, selective heat sintering, selective laser melting (SLM) and selective laser sintering (SLS). Laser sintering requires a scan path by which the laser travels and welds the metal powder to form layers over layers. Computer vision can help to locate the part on which the laser has to be fired. Camera calibration is one of the techniques in computer vision by which the world (object) 3D coordinates are converted into 2D image coordinates. Practically, it becomes essential to know the exact position of the camera, i.e., camera intrinsic. Camera calibration technique provides camera intrinsic and gives out extrinsic, i.e., 2D coordinates.

With the growing industrial conscience for obtaining maximum possible output in minimum time, automation has become an indispensable tool. The objective of the present research is to develop a low-cost electronic detection system based on Arduino microcontroller. The present work has been carried out by making the small parts move on the tracks of a vibratory bowl feeder which is extensively used in industry for small part feeding on assembly lines. The work can, therefore, be seen as important as it will make conventional vibratory bowl feeding systems work in a smarter manner. The present system consists of two sensing elements namely IR and colour recognition sensor. The former is used to check the orientation of the components, whereas the latter senses the colour. A servo-based actuating plunger discards the components of undesired orientation and colour. It is expected that the system will prove to be beneficial for industrial applications.

Solar refrigerated hybrid E-rickshaws have gained more popularity due to zero carbon emission, less energy consumption, comfortable and light transport in the last few years which used in congested Indian cities for urban transport. Most of these E-rickshaws were used four to six lead-acid batteries. The weight of these batteries was lies between 110 and 200 kg which was highly effects on the driving range of E-rickshaws. Then, the driving range of E-rickshaw was not more than 110 km and which required to replace in 1.5 years to maintaining driving range. E-rickshaw used lithium-ion battery which was facing difficulties in terms of accurate health due to various internal and external factors. Lithium-ion battery bank used for E-rickshaw was lighter in weight and longer driving range provided as compared to the lead-acid battery bank. This research paper focuses on all issues and challenges to using lithium-ion battery bank for E-rickshaw with possible solutions which include technological development in the state of health and remaining useful life for current and future.

Value stream mapping (VSM) has been successfully applied to improve OEE and other performance parameters in a sewing line of VIP Industries Ltd. Improvement scopes have been identified from the current state map, and rough set theory has been adopted to identify focused areas and improvement strategy regarding where and how lean control should be approached. After that, two new layouts have been designed. Different performance parameters are calculated for both of the layouts and compared with the existing layout. New layout 2 exhibited the most promising outcome and is selected as the proposed layout. Production lead time, inventory and processing time are visualized in the future state VSM based on the proposed layout. Finally, OEE improved from 45 to 53.75%. This methodology is suitable for manufacturing environment having process layout and achieves the goals of reducing waste and improving productivity and performance.

Enhancement of heat transfer in a pipe can be achieved by the use of passive techniques like circular perforated ring (CRP) insert and twisted tape insert. When these techniques were used by the researchers, they show an increase in thermal performance of heat exchangers. In this paper, combined effect of both the technique CRP insert and twisted tape insert on heat transfer in pipe is investigated. For CFD analysis, a model of pipe of 1.4 m length and 68 mm diameter is created and is tested for Reynolds’s number between 7000 and 22,000. The parameters for CPR inserts are thickness ratio (t/d) = 0.0075, pitch ratio (PR) = 1, diameter ratio (d/D) = 0.8 and for tape insert are twist ratio (TR) of (1, 2, 3 and 4) and width ratio of 0.5. The pipe is provided with the flux of 1000 W/m2 on outer surface. Results of heat transfer (Nu) and friction factor (f) for different twist ratio are then compared.

In this work, different absorber tubes like polished copper tube, unpolished copper tube, Ni–Al coated copper tube and Ni–Cr coated copper tube have been used separately in solar parabolic trough collector for conducting performance study with heat transfer fluids of water and saltwater. The tracking system is used for the solar rays tracking to get a better performance of the solar parabolic trough collector. The four absorber tubes and two heat transfer fluids are used as factors to design of experiment of solar parabolic trough collector. Ni–Al and Ni–Cr coatings are done on copper tube by using thermal spray coating technique. The experiments are conducted according to DOE on the solar parabolic trough collector. The temperature and discharge of working fluid are measured. These measured values are analyzed, and the optimum value of factors is identified using the WASPAS method.

The fossil fuel-powered transportation is known to emit pollution and has been an active contributor to the problem of greenhouse gas. The fossil fuel imposes a huge burden on the economy of a country as non-renewable energy resources are limited. The solutions are being designed to implement the use of renewable energy resources in the transportation sector by introducing battery-powered electric vehicles. The battery charging utilizes three major levels of charging; level 1 resembles slow charging with power output 1.4–1.9 kW, level 2 stands for primary charging with power output 4–19.2 kW, and level 3 is fast charging with power output 50–100 kW. The charging stations are mostly unidirectional, and efforts have been made to develop bidirectional chargers. The energy storage capability of the EV batteries would help the grid to see the EV batteries as a flexible energy resource which can be charged during off-peak hours of the grid and discharged during peak hours of the grid, thereby supporting the power grid to maintain demand-supply balance and reduce the need of additional peak-hour generators. A bidirectional power converter is implemented in the paper to connect the power grid to the electric vehicle battery and facilitate energy transfer between the power grid and the battery of electric vehicle. An impact of such a connection with respect to harmonic generation in the power grid is studied, and in both the modes of operation, the THD is found to be within limits as specified by the prevailing standards.

Alumina–Titania composite coatings are excellent candidates for providing protection against abrasive and sliding wear. These coatings have their applications in textile manufacturing components, tooling, components for the chemical industry and electrical insulation due to high wear resistance, toughness, good grindability and corrosion resistance. Al2O3–TiO2 composite powders having TiO2 from 3 to 40 wt% are deposited on mild steel substrates by advanced detonation spray coating (ADSC) technique, advanced characterization techniques like SEM, FESEM, EDS, XRD, were carried to access the coating characteristics. Tribological behavior of coatings was evaluated under dry sliding wear condition as per ASTM standards, and the results were summarized and correlated with the coating composition.

Sustainable alkali activated mortar was developed in this study utilizing silicomanganese (SiMn) fume. SiMn fume is an industrial by-product produced during the production of SiMn alloy by carbothermic reduction. SiO2, MnO2 and K2O are the major constituents of SiMn fume. The precursor material was activated by varied concentration of NaOH (4M, 8M and 12M) and constant Na2SiO3/NaOH ratio of 2.5. Alkali activated SiMn fume mortars were cured at room temperature (23 ± 2 °C) and the maximum compressive strength of 36 MPa was achieved at a concentration of 12M NaOH. Influence of dissolution of SiMn fume with a change in NaOH concentration can be observed from the results of setting time, flow and compressive strength. Flow and compressive strength increased with an increase in the concentration of NaOH. SiMn fume can be utilized as a precursor material to develop a sustainable alkali activated cementitious binder.

In recent years, the investigation of tribological behaviour of various materials has been remarkable considering the production and analysis factor of wear, friction and sliding factors. The Ti–6Al–4V combination sliding against itself and AISI M2 steel was noted at various sliding speeds and two wear components considered on the independent of counterface and connected with high temperature: oxidation wear at the most reduced sliding speeds and delamination wear. Wear rate was pronounced high against the AISI M2 at the most reduced sliding speeds and it constantly diminished as the sliding speed had been expanded. This conduct was disclosed by making reference to the impact of the counterface. At the most reduced sliding speeds, the AISI M2 counterface applied a rough impact on the Ti–6Al–4V combination, along these lines quickening its oxidative wear.

The recent scenario is all about enhancing the properties for different applications according to the acquired properties. In this work, the aluminium 6082 material is chosen as it has more Si percentage which might lead to alteration in properties. In the present work, aluminium 6082 material is solution treated first to a temperature of 450 °C, furnace cooled, air cooled, water quenched, castor oil quenched, sunflower oil quenched and then age hardened to 200 °C temperature for 2, 4 and 6 h with air cooling. Microstructure and hardness tests are conducted and are found that the untreated Al-6082 alloy recorded lower RHN than the heat-treated Al-6082 alloy in the case of air cooling, whereas in the case of furnace cooling, an untreated Al-6082 alloy recorded higher value than heat-treated Al-6082 alloy.

The fast depletion of fossil fuels and the associated environmental problems increased the demand for an alternate energy source. One such promising renewable energy technology is the solar energy, with a common application of photovoltaic (PV) systems. Conventional PV system faces the serious disadvantage of occupying vast land resources for installation in megawatt scale. Thus, the novel concept of floating photovoltaic (FPV) technology is developed by accounting the value of land in agriculture and urban sites. The electrical yield in FPV-based system is comparatively due to the cooling effect from water which prevents overheating of solar panels. Out of several energy extracting technologies available in FPV systems, thin film technology is found to be highly efficient. It can also be seen as a propitious technology for future large-scale FPV systems. This paper presents a detailed review of thin film technology adopted in the FPV system.

Exhaustion of crude oil reserves, increasing energy demand, drastic changes in weather conditions due to engine tail pipe emissions, stringent emission norms have induced the researchers for the search of biofuels. Methyl esters derived from used cooking oil (UCO) have properties closer to diesel fuel are considered as an ideal alternative fuel for compression ignition engine (CI engine). The present paper is to investigate the performance and combustion properties of single cylinder CI engine fuelled with used cooking oil methyl ester (UCOME) as the main fuel that is injected inside the cylinder and ethanol as a secondary fuel injected in the intake manifold by an electronic fuel injector which is controlled by ECU. Ethanol is injected at different mass flow rates of 0.1, 0.15 and 0.25 kg/h. It is observed that UCOME+E3 shows higher brake thermal efficiency (BTE) compared to other ethanol flow rates because of better combustion and air–ethanol blend quality in high engine loads. The brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC) for ethanol fumigated with UCOME fuels has been reduced at higher loads as compared with neat UCOME fuel. Ethanol’s flame spread is higher, which increases the rate of change of pressure and increases in-cylinder pressure values. The values of heat release rate (HRR) have been found increased due to high oxygen content in ethanol.

Harmonic is a sinusoidal component of a periodic wave or quantity (voltage or current) having a frequency that is an integral multiple of the primary frequency. The harmonic exaggeration is the change in the waveform of the voltage and current from the ideal sinusoidal waveform. It is caused by the wide use of non-linear loads that draw current in unanticipated pulses rather than in a smooth sinusoidal manner. Harmonic examination in the distribution system is precisely essential to learning the behavior of component associated with non-sinusoidal system. The problems caused by harmonic currents are heavy loading of neutrals, excess heating of transformers, nuisance tripping of circuit breakers, overstressing of power factor correction capacitors and skin effects. Thus, it is important to examine harmonic problems in the distribution system, estimate them and overture solutions to mitigation of harmonics. In this paper, harmonics are estimated by using an FFT algorithm and mitigation is done by using LC passive filter. MATLAB/SIMULINK software had simulated the distribution system models of non-linear load.

The chief goal of this present investigation is to evaluate performance parameters of various sustainable refrigerants as R22 alternatives. In this investigation apart from R290, R134a and R22, twelve mixture refrigerants were developed at various composition. Results showed that energy efficiency ratio (EER) of mixture refrigerant MR40 (R290/R134a 95/5 in mass%) (4.546) stood greatest among twelve investigated alternatives and it was closer to the EER of R22 (4.602). Compressor discharge temperature of MR40 was lower than R22 by 16.020C. Volumetric refrigeration capacity of MR40 (3424 kJ/m3) was relatively lesser than R22 (3801 kJ/m3). Power spent per ton of refrigeration (PPTR) of MR40 (0.773 kW/TR) stood lowest among twelve investigated alternatives and it was fairly greater than R22 (0.764 kW/TR). Global warming potential (GWP100) of MR40 (68) was very low compared to R22 (1760). Overall, performance of MR40 was closer to R22, when compared with all the twelve investigated alternatives, and hence, it might be treated as a suitable replacement to refrigerant R22.

The objective of the research work was to design the cylindrical structure, develop the autofrettage system and process for the cylindrical structure of the aluminium vessel. The developed aluminium vessel was characterized by the compression of different orientations of tapers. The developed aluminium vessel was subjected to hydraulic pressurization at 120 MPa using UTM. It was obtained by inserting an oversized EN24 steel mandrill into the vessel which resulted in inducing the residual stresses after removal of the load. The microstructural behavior of autofrettaged material and the residual stress value of aluminium cylinder were more in inner radial surface than that of the outer surfaces. From this, its clearly reveals the increase in the strength, durability and life of cylindrical or spherical were improved compared to non autofrettaged component.

Fibre-reinforced polymer composite materials show several superior properties over conventional engineering materials. Glass fibre has excellent mechanical properties. Hence, it is used as reinforcing agent to produce a very strong and relatively lightweight polymer composite. In order to enhance, the properties of glass fiber-reinforced polymer laminates by incorporating filler material to increase strength and mechanical properties. In this study, primary venture is to add up graphene and tungsten carbide filler into GFRP and study the behaviour of tensile, flexural strength. The composite was fabricated by hand lay-up process with sample thickness of 2.8 mm. It has been evaluated by the addition of 2, 4 and 6% of weight percentage graphene and tungsten carbide nanopowder filler material. The properties of the laminates will be tested by carrying out tensile and flexural strength per ASTM standard D 3039 and D 790, respectively. The effect of the addition of 2 wt% graphene will show the tremendous improvement in flexural strength, whereas addition 4 wt% of tungsten carbide shows excellent improvement in tensile strength compared with parent GFRP having an absence of filler material. It was observed that the GFRP reinforced with graphene and tungsten carbide improves the mechanical properties of GFRP.

Power transformer is an important and costly device in electrical power system. Analysis of power transformer is useful to protect the device from different hazards. Mineral transformer oil acts as a coolant and part insulation in power transformers. Transformer cooling is ensured by non-directed or directed flow of oil inside the transformer. Transformer oil is found to consist of conducting particles moving along the flow path of transformer oil. Particles which are conductive in nature when come in contact with the disc, get stress formed on them and may lead to partial discharge (PD). Partial discharge due to particle is one of the grounds of failure of transformers. To find the behaviour of the particle, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis using ANSYS software is performed. Analysis is carried out for high voltage (HV) winding of a 100 MVA power transformer. Path of movement of spherical particles made up of copper is simulated using CFD. Stress formed on each particle at the point of impact with transformer disc is calculated theoretically. This paper presents a detailed discussion on the impact of oil flow, velocity of oil and initial position of the particle at the bottom of transformer with regard to initiation of PD.

The development of electric vehicles (EVs) has created a huge demand for an advanced charging system which is capable of charging an EV in less time. In this paper, a 150 kW DC power supply with efficient T-type converter topology is proposed for EV charging. The proposed topology can be used as an EV charger of reduced size and with a capability to charge an EV battery pack at a high C-rate, thus reducing the charging time. In addition to this, the high-frequency operation of the converter reduces the size of the system while reducing losses of the systems. The proposed 150 kW power supply has been simulated in MATLAB–Simulink environment with the battery model, and the results prove the capability of the proposed charger in high-power application.

The role of preoperative MR imaging is crucial in determining the region of injury and in fixing the exact problem to get satisfactory results. The MRI of a knee provides detailed images of structure within the knee joint including cartilage, ligaments, bones, and muscles from different angles. The MRI images in DICOM format would be imported into 3D slicer for the generation of STL. Slicing is performed over the solid model of STL format by dividing its surface into triangles. This work focuses on studying the effect of slicing thickness and slicing increment on the surface finish and build time to generate a solid physical model. Regression equation modeled from ANOVA has been used to optimize the parameters influencing the outcomes with 95% accuracy.

In this study, the effect of carbon nanotube (CNT) amount in aluminium (Al)–CNT composites produced by adding CNT to Al alloy in various amounts on microstructure and hardness of CNT-reinforced aluminium metal matrix composites was investigated. CNT was added to Al matrix in different weight percentages. Two different ball materials, namely tungsten ball and aluminium oxide ball, were used for same composition of Al–CNT composites. The milled powders were compacted inside the compaction die and then sintered using microwave sintering process. The microstructural analysis of CNT-reinforced aluminium nanocomposite ball-milled powder is sintered and scanned using SEM. The Brinell hardness test is conducted for Al–CNT nanocomposite samples for both 60 and 100 Kgf loads, and it can be observed that the highest enhancement in hardness value has occurred in CNT 1.3 wt% reinforced into aluminium composites for both 60 and 100 Kgf load. Hence, it can be understood that the alumina ball-milled samples have slightly higher improvement in hardness than compared to tungsten ball-milled samples.

This paper presents electric field distribution and voltage (potential) distribution along with the 66 kV polymer insulator at the clean surface condition to study the effect of corona ring. Three parameters: horizontal distance from end fitting of corona ring (R), vertical distance (H) and diameter of ring (r) are taken to optimize the insulator design that may minimize the electrical field. Since corona rings reduce the electric field, therefore, the electrical field profiles with and without the ring are compared to adjust and finally select the optimum design parameters. The electric field estimation is performed using numerical method, i.e. finite element method (FEM).

In the present work, the finite element method (FEM) is used for machining simulations to compute the transient temperature distribution at the cutting tool. The FE numerical simulations were conducted using ANSYS to predict the temperature on the top of tooltip during the cutting action. The primary objective of the present work is to validate the numerical results of the temperature distributions in the TIN coated Tungsten Carbide tool for cutting of Inconel 825 workpiece (turning) with and without the application of coolant. For the same, in present work classical laboratory physical experiment was also carried out to measure temperature at various spatial points of cutting tool. The validation confirms that the temperature solution results obtained from the present numerical FE simulation agree with the physical experimental data. Encouraged by the ability of the present FE numerical to predict rightly the temperature distribution solution results, further numerical studies were carried out using ANSYS FE simulation to conclude that water is effective coolant in the present case when compared to the predecessors’ work recommended coolants.

The stir casted SiCP/AA6061 composite was selected to study the electrical resistivity after treated by using shot peening (SP) process. The composite microstructure is also seen by using optical microscopy. The SP-induced grain refinement and recrystallization were analyzed via X-ray diffraction (XRD). The SP for 140 s time achieved excellent recrystallization with orderly oriented grains, whose grain size refined to 33.7 nm from 55.4 nm before SP. The orderly arranged grains have mitigated the electron collision resulted in reduced frictional force and resistivity of the composite. The XRD peak broadening in 140 s peening is an indexing of grain refinement and exhibited resistivity of 2.88 × 10−3 Ω-m as compared to composite before SP as 4.63 × 10−3 Ω-m. The results confirm that SP can enhance the structural and electrical properties of SiCP/AA6061 composite.

Penstocks are an important component in hydropower plant projects especially when there is a high head turbine need to plant. These must design to withstand high-pressure under static as well as transient conditions. In this paper, we discuss the static stress analysis of internal water pressure in a penstock wye piece and we came to the conclusion that by the addition of concrete and rock to the steel pipe the maximum von Mises stress is well below their respective yield stress.

The attempt of this work is to overcome the challenging tasks due to the inherent drawbacks of electrolytic tough pitch (ETP) copper while performing welding on it. It was a comparative investigation between gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) as well as friction stir welding (FSW) on ETP copper. The specimen is an alloy of copper (degree C11000), which consists of pure copper and silver about 99.9%. ETP copper has vast applications in the industry because of good properties such as corrosion resistance, electrical, and thermal conductivity. The GTAW process is done after cold rolling of copper, and FSW has performed after nitriding the specimen. The micro and macrostructure hardness is calculated for parent material, weldment of GTAW and FSW process to compare the variation in mechanical properties of ETP Copper with the parent material. This experimental study observed that the GTAW process is feasible to achieve defect-free weldment but FSW process can be done by investing less energy, time, and resource.

The aim of this research work is to study the density and dielectric properties of the functionally graded ceramic material with fused silica. The low density and low dielectric properties of this material made it use in the aerospace applications significantly such as, radomes which are used in protecting the radar antenna from high temperature and typical environmental conditions. The fused silica samples are produced by slip casting process with uniform density and sintered up to high temperatures to achieve desired strength, density and the dielectric properties. It has been observed that the properties have shown significant change with the change in time and temperature of the sintering process.

In the present world scenario, it is challenging to reduce harmful emissions and reduce dependency on conventional petroleum from petroleum dominant countries. Recent research works reveal the suitability of biodiesel derived from vegetable and animal sources is successfully replacing the conventional diesel fuel that is majorly used in various sectors. But more emphasis should be given on works related to usage and effects of metal oxides to various biodiesel blends in order to obtain favorable outcomes. In the present study, method of obtaining biodiesel from WCO is discussed and the effect of titanium oxide (TiO2) metal-based additives taken in three different concentrations (80, 100 and 120 ppm) as an additive to WCO biodiesel on the enhancement of beneficial parameters related to IC engine is discussed. It is observed from the present study that 100 ppm of TiO2 additives into B20 (20% WCO biodiesel with 80% diesel) fuel blend showed better results than conventional diesel and B20 biodiesel.

The paper proposes a study of the underground cable defects like void, external cut and detection of the partial discharge and their electrical characteristics. The analysis shows that if defects are present in the underground cable how these can be differentiated between healthy cable and defected cable with the help of electrical signals. A cable is designed with the inner layer and material to simulate effects on electrical parameters such as electrical field or potential difference in case of various defects. Finite element method is used to estimate changes in electrical parameters. It has been found that different defects inside the cable exhibit different electrical profiles.

Fluid motion in compression ignition engine is induced during the induction process and later modified during the compression process. The main problem in compression ignition engine is improper combustion which is due to improper mixing of air and fuel due to shorter delay periods. In conventional engines, air motion is linear and there is no rotational flow of air which leads to improper mixing of air and fuel within the shorter delay periods. In order to enchance proper mixing a secondary motion is to be provided to the air so that it properly mixes with fuel for shorter delay periods which increases engine performance and reduce emissions due to complete combustion, in order to provide secondary motion to the air the design of intake manifold is changed which provides rotational movement to the air instead of linear motion which enhances proper mixing of air and fuel leading to the variation of many engine performance parameters along with emissions. In this work, different designs of intake manifolds are considered and the performance parameters and emissions are calculated and compared with conventional engine.

Maintenance of thermal comfort inside buildings requires a significant amount of energy. According to the Centre for Science and Environment, the energy spent on achieving thermal comfort in commercial buildings and in residential buildings are 31% and 7%, respectively. Considering the energy crisis that world has been suffering; every individual should try to save energy by some means. The increase in urbanization over the last few years gave rise to boom in constructions. Choosing the materials used for the construction of buildings wisely can contribute towards energy saving. The solar optical properties of building envelope affect the surface temperature up to a great extent which in turn affects the energy used for thermal comfort. In this paper, the effect of solar optical properties on time lag decrement factor and inside surface temperature is studied in different Indian climatic zones.

The development of metal matrix composites is of major interest in industrial applications due to some important advantages like strength-to-weight ratio, heat resistance and chemical stability. In the present experimental investigation work, aluminium-based hybrid metal matrix composites of various percentage compositions of graphite (1, 3, 5 and 7 wt%), E-glass (1,2,3 and 4 wt%) and mica (2 and 4 wt%). Al7075/graphite/E-glass/mica metal matrix composite fabricated by stir-casting process, and specimens are prepared as per ASTM standards. Experiments were conducted as per L16 orthogonal array. Mechanical properties like tensile strength, hardness and microstructure of metal matrix optimized by S/N ratio and ANOVA. The regression model is executed for both responses, and the most influencing factor is determined by S/N ratio. The results indicate that the graphite filler enhances the tensile strength and hardness properties. The properties of tensile strength and hardness showed improvement for 5 wt% graphite, 4 wt% E-glass and 2 wt% mica.

This paper presents artificial neural network (ANN)-based faulty section identification and fault classification technique on three-terminal power transmission lines. Tapped point of electrical power transmission lines has more complex network with protective circuits. Faulty section identification and fault classification are challenging task on a three-terminal transmission lines. The superimposed currents which are difference of similar phase currents of different terminals is utilized for the classification and section identification on a 400 kV Indian three-terminal power transmission system simulated in PSCAD/EMTDC software. The superimposed current based feature is given to the ANN-based classifiers. The performance of proposed technique is studied by changing various fault and system parameters. The accuracy achieved with the proposed method is more than 99% for section identification and fault classification.

In the present work, an analytical solution is presented for a combined pressure-driven electroosmotic flow of a Newtonian liquid within a microchannel between two parallel plates. The electroosmotic flow is considered to be induced by an externally applied electrostatic potential field and a pressure gradient. The no-slip boundary conditions are considered. The electric potential distribution is represented by the Poisson–Boltzmann equation. The Debye–Huckel linear approximation is ignored in the present work to minimize error in results. The reduced form of the Navier–Stokes and the energy equations are considered, respectively, to determine velocity and temperature distributions. Homotopy perturbation method (HPM) is adopted as an analytical tool to solve the nonlinear Poisson–Boltzmann equation for electrical potential distribution without the Debye–Huckel linear approximation. The Navier–Stokes and the energy equations subjected to respective boundary conditions are solved analytically. An expression of CfRe product is obtained solving the Navier–Stokes equation. The results obtained are validated with existing literature and show good agreement. The zeta potential is varied for a particular electrokinetic length, and proposed results are presented graphically. Finally, the Nusselt number is presented varying electrokinetic length for different values of zeta potential. The results demonstrate the influence of the zeta potential on the potential, velocity, temperature distributions, and Nusselt number.

Green tribological processes have imparted a significant part in the progression of science and technology since the evaluation of civilization worldwide. Affordable resources of energy have always been in demand in many countries. The purpose behind this is the challenge which is being continuously created by increasing demand, environmental variation, and the requirement of reliable and sustainable energy sources. All safety-related requirements are identified easily in the premature state of system design and development through adopting all ethics of green tribology. All advancements in the different areas such as smart coatings, energy conservation in bearing, emission reduction in vehicles, the effect on wind turbines, super low friction and its wear are summarized in this paper. Most of the imminent development in the green tribological processes is also included in it.

The demand on sago starch in industrial application is continuously growing, but the research on its drying behavior is still limited. In this study, ten thin layer drying models were compared through four drying temperatures in order to find the best model to describe the drying characteristic of sago starch. According to the results, sago starch exhibits drying during the falling rate period. The moisture diffusivities ranged from 8.56 × 10−10 to 1.39 × 10−9 m2/s that varied through drying temperature while the activation energy was 16.18 kJ/mol. Based on the study, the drying pattern was best described by the Page model.

Materials place a foremost role in the automobile department. But the materials available from the Earth in the method of alloys are not fulfilling the requirement, demands in the automobile fields. Conventional materials will have good mechanical, thermal properties but weight is more. In some cases will have less weight but have very less mechanical, thermal properties. The cost of the automobiles completely depends upon materials. So everyone is looking for new material which has less weight, high strength, good mechanical, thermal properties. So the above requirements will be fulfilled by composite materials. Composite materials are the combination of two or more dissimilar materials. Previously the composite materials are prepared by using synthetic fibers (carbon, glass, aramid). Synthetic materials cause more damage to environment. And also they are non-biodegradable, non-recyclable materials and are very costly. Hence, most of the scientists and technologists increased their focus on natural fibers. Natural fibers are best suitable for the replacement of synthetic fibers. Natural fibers have unique properties compared to synthetic fibers and have many advantages such as low cost, low density, recyclable, biodegradable. This research paper discusses about mechanical properties of Egg shell and Coco peat reinforced epoxy composite material (CPE) and its mechanical properties and hardness are discussed in detail. This study provides the basis of mechanical properties for CPE hybrid composites.

The rear axle housing is one of the key components in heavyweight carrying vehicles. The failure of this component before warranty period during normal working conditions is not acceptable. There is a big difference in practical road condition and boundary condition made in analytical approach. In the present work, Ansys stress life approach is used for better reliable results. Ratio loading type in Ansys fatigue tool helps to analyze the fatigue failure very close to practical load condition. The fatigue failure analysis is carried out considering static structural analysis methods using mechanical APDL solver. The fatigue life is determined as well as location of critical cross-section, maximum equivalent stress before failure initiation. Further, design enhancement solution to increase the minimum fatigue life is proposed. The stress concentration zone near the spindle is reduced by extrude cut technique using Creo parameter 2.0 solid modeling software.

During ethanol fermentation from molasses, a large quantity of coloured wastewater is generated called spent wash. The spent wash mainly consists of melanoidins which contribute to its colour. Melanoidin is recalcitrant compounds which are toxic and inhibitory to the micro-organisms and make the degradation of spent wash a difficult task. Therefore, conventional anaerobic digestion and aerobic treatment are incapable of bringing the spent wash characteristics to the level set by CPCB. The advanced technology of multiple-effect evaporator and reverse osmosis is unaffordable. None of the existing technology promises to provide foolproof solution with return on investment. Therefore, through this study, we are presenting a novel approach for decolourisation of spent wash with some return on investment through crop cultivation. Our methodology involves initial qualitative study using Soil, Sand, DYS, and Bagasse on decolourisation followed by quantitative study through packed bed, sand, DYS and bagasse showed the maximum decolourisation of 73.33%, 66.086%, 62.958% and 59.646%, respectively. Later, column studies with soil, sand and bagasse were carried out. The efficiency of packed bed column depends on the composition of packed modified soil. Therefore, various combinations were tested, and maximum decolourisation of 98% was achieved with 175 mL of soil, 75 mL of sand and 0 mL of bagasse. Nutritional analysis of spent modified soil reveals increased quality.

This paper presents experimental study efforts to explore the performance and emission characteristics of an existing single-cylinder, four-stroke, water-cooled, direct injection Kirloskar diesel engine was converted into HCCI engine. From the investigation, it was stated that WPPO with diesel results increased the brake thermal efficiency by 42.12% at 413 K inlet air temperature and full load condition. Formerly NOx were decreased for all blends and later slightly increases but smoke is negligible. However, the CO and UHC emissions are first increased and then decreased for the HCCI operation. The ANN was trained, validated and tested with experimental data sets. The artificial neural network system was created to predict the performance and emission parameters of the engine. A multi-layer discernment network was utilized for non-straight mapping among input and output parameters. Six objectives—BTE, EGT, NOx, Smoke, CO and UHC were considered. The performance of the ANN model is determined also illustrations the efficiency of the model to predict the performance and emission with a determination coefficient of 0.999.

Form drilling, a novel method of hole-making process, is performed on aluminum 8011 work material with tungsten carbide conical tool. The thrust force and torque are measured by varying the process parameters such as speed, feed, diameter of tool, thickness of work material, and magnesium powder. Temperature of the workpiece during the operation is measured by infrared thermometer. The objective of this study is to identify the most effective parameters which give a cylindrical-shaped bushing without significant radial fracture or petal formation and effect of the heat generated during bushing formation in form drilling. Taguchi method is applied to optimize the influencing parameters in form drilling for heat generation. The influencing parameter affecting heat generated in form drilling is investigated by using ANOVA, and the same is confirmed by confirmation test of Taguchi method of analysis. The experimental results show that the process variable speed influence is more followed by feed. It is observed that Mg powder, workpiece thickness, tool diameter, speed, and feed affect the petal height formation by 2.98, 0.77. 85.85, 1.83, and 1.68%, respectively. Among all the process variables, tool diameter influence is more, and after the tool diameter, the influencing parameter is Mg powder.

In this effort, mechanical attributes of sisal fiber-strengthened polyester material have been carried out with differing the fiber volume division of 10:4 and 10:5% separately. These outcomes show that the including of sisal fiber composites expanding the malleable, flexural, impact and hardness. The mechanical characteristics of sisal fiber composite material outcomes are contrasted and unsaturated polyester composites. The flexural and effect qualities accomplished from the sisal composites are up to 13.5% and 13.6 separately. The morphological examination of the sisal fiber composite example was breaking down through scanning electron microscopy (SEM). This sisal fiber mechanical outcome is additionally corresponded to the past work results.

The process of decision making involves finding out all the attributes which are quite conflicting in nature and selecting the best alternative based on the choice of the decision maker. Multi-objective techniques can be used in the selection process. In this paper, a new multi-objective optimization method called multi-objective optimization on the basis of simple ratio analysis (MOOSRA) is used to find the best alternative. MOOSRA in combination with standard deviation is used as an improvement procedure. Standard deviation is applied to decide the weights that are used for normalizing the performance measures which are obtained from the experimental outcomes. Electric discharge machining (EDM) process has widely emerged as an outstanding method for cutting electrically conductive materials which are difficult to machine by any traditional machining process. Four EDM parameters, namely peak current (Ip), pulse on time (Ton), duty cycle (T) and voltage (V) were considered as input parameters, and material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) are the output parameters. MRR and surface finish are quite contradicting in nature. Higher values of MRR are required to acquire high productivity and lower values of surface roughness are required to achieve better surface quality. The objective is to maximize MRR and minimize surface roughness. The aim of the current study is to recommend optimized input parametric combination to enhance the productivity and the quality.

This paper describes the design of trans Z-source inverter (TSI) for solar photovoltaic (PV) application. High efficient solar PV inverters are demanded in modern electrical power scenario. The TSI proposes high efficiency due to the single-stage voltage boost capability. However, in conventional voltage source inverter (VSI)-fed solar PV system, additional step-up transformer is required to increase the voltage from inverter. This decreases the efficiency by increasing the total size, cost and power losses. The proposed TSI-based solar PV system overcomes the limitations of VSI. The voltage boost in TSI is due to shoot through time period. The voltage stress and harmonics are reduced when compared with the solar PV system with VSI. The mathematical modeling of TSI-fed solar PV system and the simulation results are presented.

The main goal of this project is to develop a non-intrusive system for vehicles that can find the driver’s tiredness and concern a warning with time. Because there are a great number of traffic accidents due to fatigue of the drivers, this system aspires to avoid many crashes on roads, thus saving money and minimizing personal suffering. The proposed system continually monitors the driver’s mouth, eye, and head through the real-time camera which is focused at the driver’s face. The changes in mouth and eyes are analyzed and then processed to find the tiredness of the drivers and also to send alarm. This approach is simple and less complex as no training is required compared to the existing approaches. Three possible cases such as eye closure, yawing, and head tilt are considered for fatigue detection of the driver. Therefore, this approach helps to anticipate the fatigue of the driver and also gives a warning output in the form of alarm.

All living organisms on earth mainly depend on water for their survival. The water is stored in dams and made to reach people through pipelines. The leakage in pipelines leads to a major loss of water, and this leakage is noticed only when it is visible on the earth’s surface. The use of automated water leakage detection and management systems will reduce the huge quantity of water that is getting wasted every day. This paper proposes an embedded system technology for water leakage management in an effective way. The water leakage in pipelines is detected using the water flow sensor, and in taps, it is detected using the water drop sensor. The leakage in pipelines is intimated wirelessly to the corresponding authorities through cloud-based data logging. The solenoid valves are installed at different locations of the pipelines to block the flow of water until the faulty part of the pipeline or tap is repaired during leakage. The main aim of any country is to save water as its demand is increasing rapidly. Involving the proposed automation system will reduce such supply demands.

This paper presents the design and implementation of a smart automated bottle-filling industry using Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC)—Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. The automation processes include bottle-filling, warehouse management and energy-efficient lighting systems. A SCADA simulation of the bottle-filling industry, demonstrating the complete processes that can aid in monitoring and control has been developed. After the cleaning and filling processes, the bottles are transported to the warehouses with barcode labelling for effective sorting process. Appropriate warehouse management techniques coupled with state-of-the-art crane systems and automatic lighting solutions can improve sorting process and the energy-efficiency and throughput of the automated system. Hence, a complete integrated industrial automation system has been designed as a single system to improve flexibility, reliability, efficiency and the overall productivity of the industrial environment.

In this experiment, aluminum-silicon alloy reinforced with 10 wt% fly ash were prepared by stir casting technique and their mechanical properties are compared at different stirring speeds. Here keeping all other parameters constant the stirring speed was varied at 600 and 650 rpm. The tensile test of the specimen was carried out using the tensometer and was found that the specimen prepared with higher stirring speed showed better tensile strength. The compression test was carried out using universal testing machine which clearly shows stirring speed affects the compression test. The hardness test of the composite specimen was performed with the help of Brinell hardness testing machine. The results concluded that stirring speed influenced the microstructure and the hardness of composite. Similarly, the impact test was conducted. The composite showed better mechanical properties at 650 rpm. But after definite stir speed the properties of the prepared composite degraded again. In this paper, an effort has been made to test the influence of stirring speed on the mechanical properties of Al–Si alloy based MMC.

This study aims to identify the main pillars of Industry 4.0 which have significant roles to play in this digital transformation. To reveal these key pillars, both qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques are adopted. A well-established data-driven technique, Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is applied on a larger set of articles published in the conference proceedings and academic journals. Based on the results of the LSA, qualitative data analysis and through discussion with subject matter experts, we determined five inter-connected pillars of Industry 4.0, namely, ‘Smart technologies and standardisation’, ‘Smart factory’, ‘Work organisation and design’, ‘Smart city and Smart infrastructure’ and ‘Innovative business model’. The pillars revealed in the analysis will provide a greater insight to academics and practitioners working in this field around the globe. Further it will assist to transform businesses smoothly from its current state to Industry 4.0.

DC/DC bidirectional converter is nowadays gain importance in various fields such as automobiles, microgrid and energy storage systems. More researches are carried on these converters to improve efficiency, reliability and soft switching. Bidirectional converters are mostly used in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and grid-to vehicle applications (G2V). Multiport converters are also designed to operate as bidirectional converter. In future most of the applications are based on bidirectional converter. There are many topologies of DC/DC bidirectional converter has been proposed. Some of the bidirectional DC/DC converters working and their advantages are discussed in this paper.

Defects in structures will affect its natural vibrations. With the advent of pure data-driven modeling techniques such as Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD), the defected modes can be separated from the normal modes by using vibration data from various points on the structural element. In this work we simulate the vibrations of a cantilever beam in Abaqus® without defect and with different defects. We apply DMD to compute the spatial modes of vibration in each of these cases. Furthermore we train a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier with the Eigen-modes we have computed, to identify defects. We also analyze this data visually using t-SNE plots.

Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability in the world. The patient needs a repetitive and consistent rehabilitation treatment in order to get a chance for recovery. Unfortunately, the rural patients have difficulties to perform such treatment due to the transportation problem where they need to travel far away from the remote areas. Therefore, a compact, transportable, and simple operation of device was developed to support the treatment. However, the effect of newly developed rehabilitation device toward human muscles is still unknown due to the limited and restricted testing using real patient. In this research, the newly developed device was evaluated using ergonomic software called AnyBody. Four different movements by using the device were simulated, and six main muscles were selected for analysis. The result shows that different movement using the rehabilitation device gives different effects toward human muscles.

Engines fail to adhere to the current environmental norms. Hence, advancement in electric vehicle technology becomes an absolute necessity. In addition to high costs, the short driving range of electric vehicles makes it less viable for consumer applications. Due to this reason, we have mathematically modeled an electric vehicle in order to implement a parallel regenerative braking strategy. The controller of choice is a fuzzy logic controller (FLC). The adopted strategy has increased efficiency and driving range of the vehicle while taking into consideration the safety of the rider.

Nowadays security has become one of the challenging problems in almost all fields like IT, Banking, Medical, MNC companies, and many more. Cryptography and steganography are some of the few techniques used to provide the security for the text, images and many other multimedia data which is to be transferred over the network. Although the researchers are coming up with more and more enhancements in these fields, still there is a demand for new security challenges for the present-day digital data expansion. The limitation of the Cryptography is after encryption the ciphertext looks meaningless and it is vulnerable to the attacker and thus it raises a transmission interruption. On the other hand, the limitation of steganography is once the hidden information is revealed message is disclosed. The digital users regularly transfer a lot of files from one system to other system either within the range or far range by using the internet or intranet and simultaneously they also look for more security. In this work, a merged technique is proposed to improve the security in which first the message is encrypted using primitive cryptography algorithm—BlowFish and the obtained ciphertext is embedded into an image file using Least Significant Bit (LSB) technique. Here the medical image file is also considered as sensitive data and it is encrypted using a double embedding process with another cover image. This client-side encryption framework helps in providing secure outsourcing of medical data to a third party environment like any cloud service.

Decision making toward Medicare in the running environment has been taken topmost priority. Processing and understanding of Medicare data are a tricky challenge. The recommended system design carries in various stages to work insight to the problem. In this paper, we use machine learning algorithms for accurate decision on Medicare data. Specifically, the paper analyzes heterogeneous-typed data with the use of hierarchical grouping (HG) mechanismin at the preprocessing phase. Application of metrics like multiple aggregate, grouping and re-indexing simplifies the process in the both the phases. While in the development phase, detection outlier with the perspective of claims provided by the provider given at prior (history). Prior cost acts as good indicator for the decision. Use of statistical-based approach the outlier amount is detected. Random forest (RF) algorithm generates RF trees, and they were able to generate accurate results to choose cost of surgery (disease) from the provided data. Our system is useful to evaluate with reasonably low costs and error free, as demonstrated in experimentation on real-world datasets which are publicly available.

Most deaths occur around the world because of cardiac disorders. Cardiac rhythm disorders may cause severe strokes and heart diseases. Arrhythmias occur when the electric signals to the heart are irregular or not working properly. Mostly, these irregular heartbeats feel like racing hearts. Many times, arrhythmias are harmless, but if they are abnormal or they result due to damaged heart, then they can be fatal. Cardiac arrhythmia, being the leading cause of death in both men and women, can be prevented with the early and correct diagnosis. In this paper, the focus is mainly on predicting whether the patient has cardiac arrhythmia or not based on electrocardiography (ECG) reports. Pan–Tompkins algorithm has been used for QRS detection which predicts the abnormal deflections that lead to the arrhythmic events. The same reports have been used to classify which type of cardiac arrhythmia the patient has using Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) algorithm.

According to “The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the United States of America” drowsy driving was responsible for 72,000 crashes, 44,000 injuries and 800 deaths in 2013. With growing population and raise in the standards of living globally, there is an exponential increase in the automotive population. There are a number of concerning issues winding around this global trend, one among such dire issues is life loss caused by careless driving habits like intentional or unintentional drowsy driving. There may be a number of reasons for sleepiness or fatigue ranging from a general cause like lack of sleep to various medical causes like sleep disorders or medications. Considering the potential threat, we put forward a driver monitoring model using the facial land marks of the subject to determine the eye aspect ratio (EAR) and the mouth aspect ratio (MAR) to judge the consciousness of the motorist as a measure to sense and take appropriate action to control any deleterious outcomes.

The information technology field has emerged, established and improved over time, resulting in the utilization of Internet by many organizations. On the other hand, the data gathered by commercial and operational businesses is unstructured, hard to understand and of limited use. Business intelligence (BI) tools play a major role in extracting useful, intuitive, and graphical representation of accurate data that is useful for predictive analysis, trends, and patterns in business, and business decision making. The paper talks about current trends and techniques in BI segments (devices) and describes operational advances in an organization that utilizes BI framework, that results in the strengthening the connection between commercial business needs and IT technologies and how different BI methods are adopted and studies about current market business intelligence tools examples that give significance of usage of business intelligence in the enterprise business.

In this paper, we study how to handle current issues encountered once training classifiers at intervals within the defined framework, i.e., the cascades of boosted ensembles (CoBEs). This CoBEs framework became more popular ones they are more successful in the face detector. From there on researchers started improvising the present procedure by implementing new procedures through various directions such as another possible boosting methods and attributes sets. In the present scenario, a big challenge faced by this framework is unreasonable classifier training runtimes. The lengthy runtimes are an obstacle for this framework, for the broader usage. In addition to this they deter the method of creating effective object detection applications. They also considered as verifications of other analyses when creating the testing of the latest theories and algorithms, which is an extreme challenge. One more limitation of this CoBEs framework is its reduced capability to train existing classifiers gradually. At present, the highest guarantee technique of combining latest data set into a live data set classifier is, to train a classifier from starting point using the combination of old and new data sets. It is unworthy and it is short of a defined modularity and removes important data obtained in earlier training. To work with the existing issues, the current paper studies and compares alternative CoBEs framework for training classifiers. The alternative framework reduces runtimes of training by a degree of enormity than regular CoBEs framework and introduces other accountability to the existing procedure. They obtain this, while keeping alive the generalization capability of existing classifiers. This paper also studies a new process for raising training of CoBEs classifiers and presents, how existing classifiers executed without retraining them from the start, i.e., boosting chain learning. Even though it is capable to increase the successful detection rates of existing classifiers (AdaBoost, FloatBoost), presently it is not capable to lower the negative detection rates.

Data security and authentication mechanism is a very challenging job for smart devices. And more ever, IOT is suffering with login and verification process. Here, in our paper, we have focused on human characteristics-based security system which cannot be pinched easily such as iris, thumb, palm, DNA and voice-based authentication system. Using biometric authentication theory, we have presented that how biometric systems are the boundless computational resources and prospective of flexibility, reliability and cost reduction along with high-security performance resources. To maintain the security of biometric traits over the Internet channel, end user can apply the cryptography algorithm such as ElGamal, MAC Omura, Cramer–Shoup, RSA. As a final point, this paper is contributed for evidencing the strength of integrating the biometric authentication system with cryptography techniques and its application on Internet-based applications. In order to develop strong security, we have proposed an integrated approach of three mechanisms using biometrics, OTP and cryptography. The work is validated for biometrics through AVISPA (SPAN) security tool which is worldwide acceptable for approving the security architecture.