Progress in Engineering Technology II

The advancement of portable electronic devices and the ever-increasing integrated functions which have become a necessity in smartphones, tablets and similar devices have prompted the industry to look for portable power supplies to enhance the lifetime and the usage of portable electronic devices. Therefore, harvesting free energy from the surroundings to provide usable electrical energy could be an interesting solution toward this requirement. In this paper, sound waves energy which is in the form of a pressure wave is investigated to be as a source of free energy which is abundant in our surroundings. The piezoelectric type called PZT 5A bimorph cantilever was introduced as a sound energy harvester during an experimental work. The piezoelectric was tested to extract sound energy produced by the loudspeaker at several predetermined distances from the loudspeaker. The result shows that the maximum voltage of 83 mV_peak was obtained with the sound intensity of 102.6 dB at a resonant frequency of 374 Hz, and the maximum power of 3.445 µW was produced at 1 kΩ of optimal load resistance.

Cracks and physical damages are a threat to the strength of structures. Non-destructive test (NDT) measures are used to detect the damages at the earlier phase to avoid any major damage to the structures. Vibration signal processing is one of the NDT methods to determine the damage based on the experimental modal analysis. In this study, an experimental setup is devised to freely suspend a steel plate of size 30 cm by 60 cm. Based on the experimental modal analysis, the steel structure is struck using an impact hammer and the dispersed mechanical energy is bagged as vibration response using an accelerometer. The damages of size 512–1852 µm were manually simulated at arbitrary locations on the surface of the steel structure. The data acquisition procedure is repeated before and after the simulation of damage. The vibration signals are then processed, and the wavelet packet transform is applied to extract the dominant features from both the normal and fault data. The feature set is normalized between 0 and 1 are then mapped toward the condition of the plate to formulate the final dataset. Using a K-fold cross-validation technique, the dataset is trained and tested using support vector machine (SVM) and K-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifiers. The results are compared and discussed.

Corrosion is the main factor for steel failure. It is a natural process, which converts a refined metal to a more chemically stable form, such as its oxide, hydroxide or sulphides. It’s the gradual destruction of material (usually metals) by chemical and/or electrochemical reaction with the environment. For this study, the influence of temperature on the corrosion surface of the steel evaluated under the temperature that has been applied ranging between 40 and 110 °C for 2 min for the heat released by the material. The study of temperature absorption was conducted under low temperature between −17 °C until 15 °C for 2 min. This investigation of the experiment showed that the application of corrosion temperature behaviour of steel can be used or applied as the renewable application or purpose in the sector of engineering.

During orthodontic treatment, the force released by the bent of a NiTi archwire is influenced by the friction developed in the bracket system. This in vitro study investigated the amount of friction encountered by the NiTi archwire in a 3-brackets configuration. Five different sizes within two shapes of NiTi archwire were considered for the bending test at different deflection magnitudes of 2, 3 and 4 mm. The binding friction was measured by comparing the force-deflection curve of the NiTi archwire with the use of polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) bracket and stainless steel brackets. The force result from the Teflon bracket was considered as a control test, utilizing its frictionless character. This investigation revealed that the binding friction is affected by the archwire size and shape. The NiTi archwire experienced higher binding friction during activation and slightly lower during the wire recovery at deactivation. The magnitude of the binding friction gradually increased with the increase of the archwire size and shape, with the largest binding friction of 7.6 N recorded from the 0.457 mm × 0.635 mm rectangular archwire and the smallest binding friction was recorded from the 0.356 mm round archwire.

In developing countries, children riding on a motorcycle as a pillion or driver are very common despite restriction by law for the driver. Children as motorcycle pillions or riders are more vulnerable. They are vulnerable to hazard on lower limb and falling from the motorcycle due to a lack of stability. This paper is focused on designing a child restraint system for motorcycles with an engine capacity of 100–150 cc that can secure the safety of the child passenger from aged 2 to 5 years old and being able to support a maximum child passenger of 20 kg weight. The methodology used in designing this product includes house of quality, morphological chart, weighted objective analysis, sketching, concept design, CAD modelling, finite element analysis and prototyping. The result of the design is able to withstand the child maximum weight of 20 kg and was successfully installed at a Modenas KRISS.

Sleeping on the wheels due to drowsiness is one of the significant causes of death tolls all over the world. The primary reason for sleepiness is due to the lack of sleep and irregular sleep patterns. Several methods such as unobtrusive sensors, vehicle dynamics and obtrusive physiology sensors are suggested to diagnose drowsiness of drivers. However, the unobtrusive sensors detect drowsiness in the later stage, whereas the physiological methods use obtrusive sensors such as electroocular, electromyogram and electroencephalograms and produce high accuracy in the early detection of drowsiness, which makes them a preferable solution. The objective of this research article is to classify drowsiness with alertness based on the electroencephalographic (EEG) signals using band power and log energy entropy features. The publicly available ULg DROZY database was used in this research. The five EEG channels from the raw multimodal signal are extracted. By using a band-pass filter with the cut-off frequencies of 0.1 and 50 Hz the high-frequency components were removed. Another band-pass filter bank is designed to slice the raw signals into eight sub-bands, namely delta, theta, low alpha, high alpha, low beta, mid beta, high beta and gamma. The preprocessed signals were segmented into an equal number of frames with a frame duration of 2 s using a rectangular time windowing approach with an overlap of 50%. Spectral entropy features were extracted for each frame in the sub-bands. The extracted feature sets were further normalized between 0 and 1 and labeled as drowsy and alert and then combined to form the final dataset. The K-fold cross-validation method is used to divide the dataset into training and testing sets. The processed dataset is then trained using, K-nearest neighbor network, and support vector machine classifiers, and the results are compared. The KNN classifier produces 95% classification accuracy.

The direct current (DC) series motor is the highest starting torque motor compared to other motors with the same kilowatt power. The conventional speed controller that is used in an electric vehicle utilizes the series motor that can cause jerk and slip during start-up. This paper discusses the usage of a direct current control (DCC) in the four quadrants direct current chopper (FQDC) application to overcome the start-up problem. The series motor current is controlled in a closed-loop fashion using the fuzzy logic technique. The DCC is a current control method using a lookup table (LUT) with a predetermined reference current. The system is tested using MATLAB/Simulink. The simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink show that the current can be controlled using a fuzzy logic technique.

Direct current (DC) series motors have a higher starting torque compared to other types of motors, and their power is in the kilowatt range. The standard speed is applied for electric vehicles (EVs) with a series motor, and four quadrants direct current chopper (FQDC) can cause jerk and slip during the start-up. DC control (DCC) is one of the solutions applied to FQDC to overcome this start-up problem. The DCC is the current control strategy that employs a lookup table with a predetermined reference current. The current has to be controlled in a closed loop with feedback. An inefficient feedback controller with wrongly tuned parameters can cause ripples in current and torque. This paper describes the modeling and the control of a proposed DCC using a PID controller with the pole placement technique. The system is tested using MATLAB/Simulink which shows that the current can be controlled using the digital PID utilizing the pole placement technique.

The aluminium–air (Al-air) battery is one of the demanded batteries as it is safe and efficient to power up an electronic device. However, the corrosion behaviour due to the hydrogen gas released from the aluminium anodes is a critical issue that must be considered in the Al-air battery development. This paper is aimed to establish an Al-air battery single-cell model and to simulate the hydrogen gas release by using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method. As a result, the pressure distribution and velocity profile inside the Al-air battery are being studied. These two measured parameters are closely significant indicators towards the corrosion behaviour. Controlling the fluid behaviour inside the Al-air battery by using the SPH method is another way to improve the performance of the battery.

This paper proposes a numerical method using Taylor series in representing a new series motor of a four-quadrant drive direct current chopper (FQDC) in driving mode operation for electric vehicle’s application. The representation has three main purposes which are for troubleshooting, error correction and optimization. The Taylor series will be used to imitate the real system of a FQDC, but it is running in an embedded system such as a PIC microcontroller. Through this representation system, we can do a fault diagnose, error correction and system tuning without disturbing the real system on running. Once the optimization via representation is obtained, it can be applied to the real system. The representation system using Taylor series is tested using MATLAB/Simulink. The simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink show that the Taylor series computation algorithm successfully represents the FQDC in driving mode.

Recycling cooking oils in daily life is a common thing to do for some people to reduce the costs. However, this habit will lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. Reheating oil undergoes a series of chemical changes such as oxidation and hydrolysis, which will produce some harmful substances that will generate lipid peroxidation that could possibly be dangerous to human health. This experiment is conducted on how to detect the turbidity of the oil by using a simple experimental setup.

This paper focused on the steering position control for automatic reverse parking of a direct current (DC) drive electric car. The steering position control was integrated into a vehicle cornering algorithm using a two-turn/double-circle concept. The control technique was simulated using MATLAB/Simulink; the results showed that the technique successfully met the objective of steering position control for reverse parking. Therefore, it is suitable to be implemented in an autonomous DC drive electric car.

This paper focuses on the reverse mode of a proposed series motor four-quadrant direct current chopper (FQDC). The paper proposes a control technique in controlling the acceleration and deceleration of an electric vehicle (EV) using triple cascade proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers with an ascend-descend algorithm for controlling speed, torque, and position. The aim is to control the electric propulsion motor powered by the FQDC for the application of automatic reverse parking of an autonomous DC drive electric car. The control technique was simulated using MATLAB/Simulink, and the results showed that the technique has successfully met the objective of torque, current, speed, and position control for reverse and auto-reverse parking. In addition, the technique is suitable to be implemented in a DC drive electric car.

Technology on active infrared thermography has been widely used in the field of non-destructive testing. The defects produce an uneven heat dissipation, and an infrared camera captures this thermal reaction. The phase image provides an outstanding invisible flaws description on sequences of images captured. During the data acquisition phase, the result might be affected by image noise resulting from the emissivity on the specimen surface and also by the non-uniform heating process. For this study, an infrared camera of medium wave infrared range was analysed. The heating process is done by heating the aluminium plate in an oven for 5–15 min. These specimens contain twelve numbers of flat-bottomed circular holes, from sample upper surface with different artificial depth. All of the artificial defect samples were manufactured by the milling machining process. The defect detection and characterisation used several data and different analysis methods were used in the pre-processing for quantitative analysis. The infrared test method on non-destructive thermography capability was increased since the final result appears clearer and can be used for future studies. The temperature data used the image filtering and image segmentation process for better visualisation of defects. The correlation image and the correlation image phase show promising results. The experimental setup and comparative results were analysed in detail in this document. As a conclusion, the image enhancement method has a significant influence on the defect detection result.

A micro-turbogenerator is a combination of an alternator and a turbocharger which is used to convert rotational mechanical energy into electrical energy. It can be configured with different prime movers such as a steam turbine, a gas turbine in single-cycle or in a combined-cycle arrangement. The primary objective of this project is to study the performance analysis of a micro-turbogenerator in automotive application and to determine the correct alternator that can supply current to generate the test rig. An experiment has been conducted to find the output current of the alternator by using an instrument and it involved certain mathematical calculations based on the output voltage and alternator power. The results show that the higher the alternator speed, the higher the output current or power produced. This concludes that with the increment of the alternator’s output voltage along with the alternator’s speed, the alternator is really charging up the battery. A fully charged battery should have a voltage reading above 13.7 V. Therefore, this proves that the usage of the alternator in a lower engine capacity is applicable. Besides, the higher the alternator’s speed, the lower the alternator’s output current. This indicates that theoretically, there are possible loads acting on the engine and the current decreased as it was consumed by the loads. In addition, the higher the alternator’s output voltage, the lower the alternator’s output current.

This project deals with an experimental study of a micro-turbocharger test rig for engine performance with and without a turbocharger system. In order to achieve higher performance, bigger engines are needed. With the turbocharger, the performance of the engine can be increased without the need of a bigger engine. This is called a downsize. Therefore, the objective of this research work is to develop a micro-turbocharger test rig using a motorcycle engine for laboratory usage to evaluate the performance of the motorcycle engine with and without turbocharger system. In order to fabricate the test rig, the finite element method (FEM) was chosen as the method to study the stress and displacement of the structure before performing an action for the fabrication. Moreover, in this project, the turbo IHi RHF3 and Lifan 160 cc motorcycle engine was selected according to the required specification. The engine performance such as torque, brake power, mean effective pressure, fuel consumption, specific fuel consumption and brake thermal efficiency was measured. The test data were collected by using a dynamometer controller. All the data of the engine performance were collected, and some calculations were made to obtain the resulting power after installing the turbocharger.

In this paper, the application of the waste elimination technique in solving the waste of motion for manual assembly processes has been studied, analyzed, and implemented. The waste of motion is one of the seven wastes as highlighted in the lean manufacturing system (LMS), where it can happen at any time and workers are required to make movements that do not add any value to the overall production processes. A poor designed manual assembly processes can cause low productivity and inefficiency of the production system due to excessive motions. An excessive motion will cause the production bottleneck process and production delinquency, increase inventory, encourage waste of waiting, and unable to smoothing the production flow. In minimizing the waste of motion, the step-by-step of manual assembly processes needs to be studied and observed to ensure fully understanding of the process requirement. Then, each step of the manual assembly process needs to be analyzed to identify the waste of motion which is affecting the productivity and efficiency of the production systems. Once the waste of motion has been identified, the steps of manual assembly processes are required to be re-visited and re-designed to achieve optimum efficiency of the production process flow. Some of the unwanted processes might be eliminated or integrated to ensure minimum motions during the manual assembly process. This research has been conducted by analyzing the manual assembly processes in selected case study in industry and implementation the improvement process to solve the waste of motion. The result of this study shows that the process cycle time has been drastically improved by 60% and at the same time this improvement had increased the production output and solved the worker fatigue issue due to the overburden tasks. Through an effective analysis and implementation, the waste of motion for production process had been identified and successfully minimized.

In this paper, the impact of 5S implementation toward accident-free manufacturing industries was reviewed and investigated. The 5S method is a standardized process that when systematically implemented creates and maintains an organized, safe, clean, and efficient workplace. The 5S also implemented and improved the visual controls to make any process non-conformance’s obvious and easily detectable. The 5S is a systematic housekeeping technique used by organizations initiated from Japanese words; Seiri (sort), Seiton (set in order), Seiso (shine), Seiketsu (standardize), and Shitsuke (sustain). The implementation of a 5S environment in a workplace requires employee motivation and good management. All the different levels of an organization need to put their best efforts on a day-to-day basis and work together toward achieving improved performance and reducing waste. The 5S is the most effective tool and widely applied worldwide in any organization to improve the workplace. However, industrial accidents still occurred and increased. Based on current data, the Department of Safety and Health (DOSH, Malaysia) in their Web site stated an increase of accidents by 107% (January to June 2018–2019) and it is a long journey before an accident-free industry can be achieved. Hence, in this research, the impact of 5S implementation toward accident-free manufacturing industries was investigated. The literature of the 5S implementation was thoroughly reviewed through searching from published literature from the Emerald Insight, Elsevier, Google Scholar, and other databases. The data captured from this published literature was analyzed to study the impact of the 5S implementation. The result of this research shows based on the theoretical implementation, the 5S implementation potentially helps the organization to reduce the industrial accident but it requires systematic monitoring plans such as an internal audit. Through an effective investigation in this paper, the impact of 5S implementation on accident-free manufacturing industries was successfully carried out.

Polypropylene ethylene propylene diene monomer (PP/EPDM) polymer composites reinforced by spear grass (10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 wt%) were prepared with and without compatibilizer. The maleic anhydride polypropylene (MAPP) was applied as compatibilizer to the composites. The water absorption test and tensile test were conducted according to the ASTM570 and ASTM638, respectively. The percentage of water absorption, and elongation at break, was reduced with the increment of spear grass content. In contrast, tensile strength increased from 10 to 20 wt% and then reduced thereafter. Besides, the MAPP enhanced the water absorption, tensile strength, tensile modulus and elongation at break properties of the composites. In conclusion, the 20 wt% reinforcement of spear grass in the polypropylene ethylene propylene diene monomer polymer composites and MAPP as compatibilizer agent results in good properties.

In recent years, polypropylene (PP) is an ideal choice for automotive components due to its lightweight and the flexibility in the manufacturing process. However, due to the environmental effect, the usage of PP has been reduced by reinforced green materials such as spear grass fiber (SGF). In this study, acrylic acid (AA) has been used as a compatibilizer between the matrix and fiber. The composite mixture was prepared in the formulation of 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt% of treated and untreated composites. The tensile test suggests the composite with 5 wt% for treated and untreated composite have the highest value of tensile strength. The modulus of elasticity increased with the increasing in filler loading. In contrast, the elongation at break decreased with the increasing in filler loading. Moreover, the swelling test discerned that the increase in filler loading has increased the water absorption of composites. The presence of AA reduced the equilibrium water absorption percentage.

The evolution of silicon carbide (SiC) ceramics has recently attracted the interest of several researchers due to their industrial applications. Nonetheless, the shaping of SiC is quite challenging using conventional techniques due to its extreme hardness, high thermal stability and high brittleness characteristics. This study attempts to shape a modified SiC called siliconized SiC (SiSiC) by the electrical discharge process (EDM). Moreover, the effective utilization of the Taguchi approach to study the EDM parameters and optimize the responses has been reported. The responses to be studied include material removal rate (MRR), electrode wear (EW) and surface roughness (SR). The Taguchi methodology using L9 orthogonal arrays was employed to plan the experiment, and the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio was used to predict the optimum parameter settings. The experimental results were analyzed using S/N and ANOVA. The results reveal that the peak current (I) and on-time (ON) were the main significant parameters on MRR and SR whereas EW was influenced mainly by the peak current. The off-time was found to be insignificant in all the selected responses. The results obtained were justified by conducting the verification runs.

Powder metallurgy is one of the promising techniques for producing different metals and their alloys. The uniqueness of this technique owes to its processing parameters that can be optimized to produce a desired material with tailored physical and mechanical properties. Among the available biomaterials, the austenitic stainless steel 316L has been used for some time for manufacturing implants and other surgical devices. However, this material is prone to localized corrosion attacks. It corrodes in human physiological conditions in long-term applications and releases metal ions. The corrosion products include ions of nickel, chromium and iron that accumulate in the tissues surrounding the implant limiting its usage as a biomaterial. This research work aims diffusing a sintering gas (nitrogen) into the matrix of stainless steel by increasing the dwell time. The results of the study show that the increased dwell time not only diffuses nitrogen into the matrix but also forms a protective layer of nitrogen onto the samples surface. There is also a notable effect of increased dwell time on the densification and microhardness of the sintered samples. The results indicate that this surface layer can prevent the leaching of metal ions from the stainless steel matrix.

This paper presents the kinematics of a six-bar linkage which magnifies the magnitude of linear motion. A designed mechanism eliminates the problem of long bellow lengths in bellow valves which makes the valve design aesthetically more suitable for industrial applications. The mechanism is a planer linkage with a single degree of freedom where a straight-line motion at input is converted to an extended perpendicular translatory motion at output. The amplification obtained at output can be increased by addition of a link. The mechanism is based on a Stephenson III six-bar linkage. Graphical synthesis of the mechanism is attained through qualitative design process. Analyses on the proposed solutions are performed to determine their viability. Iteration between the synthesis and analysis is done until the desirable results are achieved. The paper uses the vector closed loop equations method for kinematic analysis, and later, the results are also verified by a numerical example. After the geometry and motion for the task is achieved, as an application of the mechanism, the mechanism is applied to a bellow globe valve as its opening and closing mechanism. Force analysis is carried out to study the force propagation in the mechanism and actuation of the valve. The synthesized linkage application in the globe valve reduces the length of bellow required up to 75% which as a result reduces the height of the valve significantly.

Aseptic loosening and stress shielding are the most common causes of implant failure after total knee and hip arthroplasty. Failure is due to difference in mechanical properties of natural bone and artificial implants. Porous structures provide the solution to this problem and are being used in implants to avoid failure. The purpose of this research is to determine an optimum porous structure that gives similar mechanical properties as natural bone and can be used in implants. Four different structures have been analyzed for their mechanical properties at different pore sizes and orientation. Finite element analysis is performed in all designs using the ANSYS structural module mimicking ISO standard testing (ISO 13314). All of the structures give optimum porosity to be used as implants, but only some instances show similar Young’s modulus and yield strength to mimic bone’s mechanical properties. The analysis of the porous structures gives promising results for application in orthopedic implants. Application of optimum structure to implants can reduce the premature failure of implants and increase the reliability.