Analysis of Brush Seal Interaction with Steam Turbine Rotor-Shafts

High-speed turbines are a major source for power production. They utilize high pressure and temperature fluid flow. Sealing of these machines to decrease the flow losses has been a major engineering challenge since the inception of steam turbines. From an engineering viewpoint, seals are used to introduce friction in the fluid flow path. This reduces the flow leakage. Improved seal performance offers substantial opportunities for turbine performance. Reduced leakages in steam turbines can lead to greater efficiency and power output. They can also allow tighter control of turbine secondary flows. However, sealing these machines is a major challenge. There are several seal locations on a steam turbine that have significant performance derivatives. These include the interstage shaft packing, the end packing, and the bucket tip seals. Brush seals are ideal for these locations because they can reduce the flow losses. This study analysed the efficiency of the steam turbine by using ANSYS APDL. It assessed the leakage performance of the brush seal for different cases and geometries. It also used porous medium modelling of the bristle pack to provide insight for designers. The outputs of interest were the rotor-shaft temperature and the efficiency of the entire turbine with the brush seal

Impact of Road Pavement Condition on Vehicular Free Flow Speed, Vibration and In-Vehicle Noise

Road infrastructure in good condition is a key requirement for efficient transportation systems which leads to economic prosperity and improved quality of life. However, road surface conditions deteriorate over time according to traffic loads and environmental factors. Poor road conditions lead to congestion, accidents, lost productivity, and driver fatigue. This work considers the relationship between road pavement condition and vehicle speed, vibration, and in-vehicle noise. A 7 km section of the Grand Trunk Road, Peshawar, Pakistan divided into 280 segments (140 for each lane), of length 50 m was observed and the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of each segment was determined based on the recurrent distress type and density according to ASTM D6433-011 guidelines. The number of very good, satisfactory, fair, poor, and very poor conditions are 51, 52, 81, 48, and 42, respectively. The mobile app BotlnckDectr was employed to measure vehicle speed, RPM, noise, vibration, GPS location, and time. Statistical analysis was employed to determine the relationship between PCI and vehicle speed, vibration, and in-vehicle noise. The results obtained indicate that noise and vibration increase by 3.3% and more than 30%, respectively, as the pavement condition changes from good to very poor, and vehicle speed decreases by 8.8%

Fatigue life prediction of mistuned steam turbine blades subjected to deviations in blade geometry

The blades of the steam turbine are subjected to bending of the steam flow, centrifugal loading, vibration response, and structural mistuning. These factors mentioned contribute significantly to the fatigue failure of steam turbine blades. Low pressure (LP) steam turbines experience premature blade and disk failures due to the stress concentrations in the root location of the blade of its bladed disk. This study of mistuned steam turbine blades subjected to variation in blade geometry will be of great significance to the electricity generation industry. A simplified, mistuned, scaled-down steam turbine bladed disk model was developed using ABAQUS finite element analysis (FEA) software. The acquisition of the vibration characteristics and steady-state stress response of the disk models was carried out through FEA. Such studies are very limited. Subsequently, numerical stress distributions were acquired and the model was subsequently exported to Fe-Safe software for fatigue life calculations based on centrifugal and harmonic sinusoidal pressure loading. Vibration characteristics and response of the variation of the geometric blade of the steam turbine were investigated. Natural FEA frequencies compared well with the published literature of real steam turbines, indicating the reliability of the developed FEA model. The study found that fatigue life is most sensitive to changes in blade length, followed by width and then thickness, in this order. Analytical life cycles and Fe-Safe software show a percentage difference of less than 4.86%. This concludes that the numerical methodology developed can be used for real-life mistuned steam turbine blades subjected to variations in blade geometry

Electro-Osmotic Blood Flow of Shear-Thinning Fluid with Hall Current and Wall Flexibility

The presented article aims to present the flow of blood in microchannels such as veins and arteries via peristaltic flow.  The magnetic field is imposed to regulate the flow as laminar. Also, its impacts in terms of Hall current have been considered. The rate of heat transfer is further based on Joule heating and viscous dissipation aspects. Mathematical analysis has been conducted given long wavelength and small Reynolds number. Such preferences are relatable to the medical domain where the magnetic field regulates the flow stream and aids in the melting of blood clots in patients with various heart diseases. The solution for electric potential is calculated analytically while the velocity, temperature, and heat transfer rate are executed directly via the built-in command of Mathematica software. Since the magnetic field acts as an opposing force. Results show that the velocity and temperature are decreasing functions of the magnetic field. However, the temperature is increasing for Weissenberg number

Evaluation and Challenges of IoT Simulators for Intelligent Transportation System Applications

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) constructs a vast, intricate, and perpetually evolving ecosystem exerting profound societal implications. This labyrinthine nature often culminates in errors that directly impact human lives. A significant domain where this complexity materializes is Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Present tools and methodologies inadequately accommodate the complex task of testing and validation, underscoring the urgency for comprehensive review and enhancement. This study aims to present a broad analysis of existing simulators utilized for ITS simulations. It delves into the role and effectiveness of such simulation tools, highlighting their limitations and proposing research directions. This paper scrutinizes both commercial and research-oriented IoT simulators for ITS, evaluating their features and simulation environment tools. We have detailed various ITS scenarios simulated within these frameworks, intending to gauge their readiness for real-world ITS applications and to elaborate on the challenges involved in ITS infrastructure implementation. The findings suggest that despite numerous simulators aiding the evolution of solutions for IoT challenges in recent years, their utility in actual ITS implementations remain uncertain. Consequently, we explore public cloud platforms offering IoT simulation capabilities, focusing particularly on the capabilities provided by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT simulation for this study. Our research outlines the pressing challenges in this field, while proposing potential solutions and flagging opportunities for further research. This study paves the way towards improving the reliability and accuracy of IoT simulators in the context of ITS, which has immense potential to enhance the quality of human life

Brain Computer Interfaces: The Future of Communication Between the Brain and the External World

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current state of research on Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and their potential applications. The objective of this study was to gather information from various sources, including journal articles, conference papers, and books, to analyze the advancements and limitations of BCIs. A systematic literature review was conducted using databases such as PubMed, IEEE Xplore, and Google Scholar, with specific keywords related to BCIs and their applications. The selected studies were thoroughly analyzed to identify common themes, methodologies, and key findings. The main contributions of this review include an overview of different types of BCIs, their applications in fields such as medicine, entertainment, and education, and the challenges and limitations faced by BCI technology. The findings highlight the potential of BCIs in restoring motor function, improving the quality of life for individuals with various conditions, and enhancing human-technology interaction. Furthermore, the review identifies future research directions, including signal processing improvements, exploring hybrid and multimodal approaches, conducting long-term real-world studies, addressing ethical considerations, and prioritizing user-centred design. This comprehensive analysis of existing literature provides valuable insights for researchers and practitioners in the field of BCIs and sets the stage for future advancements in this rapidly evolving domain

Dynamics and Bifurcation for One Non-linear System

In this paper, we observed the ordinary differential equation (ODE) system and determined the equilibrium points. To characterize them, we used the existing theory developed to visualize the behavior of the system. We describe the bifurcation that appears, which is characteristic of higher-dimensional systems, that is when a fixed point loses its stability without colliding with other points. Although it is difficult to determine the whole series of bifurcations that lead to chaos, we can say that it is a common opinion that it is precisely the Hopf bifurcation that leads to chaos when it comes to situations that occur in applications. Here, subcritical and supercritical bifurcation occurs, and we can say that subcritical bifurcation represents a much more dramatic situation and is potentially more dangerous than supercritical bifurcation, technically speaking. Namely, bifurcations or trajectories jump to a distant attractor, which can be a fixed point, limit cycle, infinity, or in spaces with three or more dimensions, a foreign attractor

Electro-Osmotic Flow of MHD Jeffrey Fluid in a Rotating Microchannel by Peristalsis: Thermal Analysis

In this study, we examine the rotating and heat transfer on the peristaltic and electro-osmatic flow of a Jeffery fluid in an asymmetric microchannel with slip impact. A pressure gradient and anal axially imposed electric field work together to impact the electro-osmotic flow (EOF). Mathematical modeling is imported by employing the low Reynolds number and long wavelength approximation. The exact solution has been simplified for the stream function, temperature, and velocity distributions. The effects of diverse egress quantities on the gush virtue are exhibited and discussed with the help of graphs. The shear stress and trapping phenomena have been investigated. The characterization of results has been resolved for the flow governing ingrained appropriate parameters by employing the table. Our findings can be summarized as follows: (i) Debye length has a strong influence on the conducting viscous fluid of EOF in non-uniform micro-channel. (ii) The temperature field is enhanced through the elevated values of the rotation parameter and EOF. (iii) The shear stress has oscillatory behavior and the heat transmission rate increases with the magnitude of larger values of EOF. Finally, there is good agreement between the current results and those that have already been published. This model applies to the study of chemical fraternization/separation procedures and bio-microfluidic devices for the resolution of diagnosis

Towards Automation of the FORM/BCS Method

The software industry is facing more complex computer systems, with short development and sustainability issues. To deliver good software with these constraints, software reuse has become a central concept for minimizing design and realization costs. This study improves upon Feature-Oriented Reuse Method with Business Component Semantics (FORM/BCS), a software development method that produces adaptable architectures from reusable domain components. This is a promising method for reusable software assets and model creation. The objective of the FORM/BCS is to bring the industrial production chain to the software. This study proposes a model to automatically transform the FORM/BCS business subsystem component into a process business component. Two metamodels for business subsystems and process business components were developed. In addition, this study establishes correspondences between the source metamodel and target metamodel classes, transformation rules, and the instance of the source metamodel and generates the target metamodel instance. Detailed findings can help practitioners reduce software design costs and development time, and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in software engineering

The Selection of a Possible Organizational Structure of Railway Companies by Application Fuzzy-ARAS Method

The European railway sector doesn\u27t represent a single, generic type of organizational structure. The Directives from the 1990s offer the possibility for national interpretation giving a wide range of organizational structures for European railways. Different organizational structures of railways are present in the European railway market, and all of them are aligned with the national belief of the country - how to manage the railway. This paper focuses on Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods for ranking and selecting organizational structures of railways. In decision-making, we deal with different types of uncertainty and inaccuracy. For this purpose, we need to use some specific tools. In this paper, we use triangular fuzzy numbers to quantify linguistic data. To overcome the complexity of the decision-making problem, we propose the fuzzy Additive Ratio ASsessment (ARAS) method, which also includes linguistic variables and a group approach to decision-making. With the proposed methodology an evaluation of the alternatives to the organization structure of the railway company in Bosnia and Herzegovina is considered. Separation of railway transport from infrastructure management is ranked as the best organizational structure for this company