Sustainable Business Model With Minimum Generation of Waste Using Optimum Resources: An Empirical Research in Sponge Iron Sector in India

Environmental management through resource conservation helps in industrial waste management through cleaner production and also is an issue of sustainable business practice. But, there are limited industry-specific studies on sustainable business practices and even the existing studies are focused on few regions of the world. Therefore the first step in formulation of the research problem was to assess the consumption of different raw materials and production of wastes by the sponge iron industry sector. The focus of the study was identification and evaluation of the industrial process to capture the implications of sustainable use of resources which may help the industries to minimise waste generation through optimum use of natural resources. To be more specific, it was considered that the first step in addressing the issue of sustainable development in business practice is making industrial operations more cost effective through efficient use of resources and minimisation of generation of waste through recycling and reuse of waste. Furthermore, the study ranked the surveyed industries according to their resource efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and evolved sustainable business model for operationalizing the above concept for sponge iron industrial sector. Further a curve fitting application, taking dolochar generation along Y axis and consumption of power along X axis, was carried out to check whether the linear model is the best fit model for prediction of dolochar generated in a process. The findings showed that minimum generation of waste can be explained in a better way using optimum power and iron ore

Analysis of elastic shells of revolution with membrane and flexure stresses under arbitrary loading using trapezoidal finite elements

Analysis of a general shell of revolution with arbitrary loading and boundary conditions using the Finite Element approach, well-suited for use with the electronic computer, is presented. The shell is approximated by an assemblage of flat, equilateral trapezoids and isosceles triangles connected to each other at the corners. The assumptions involved in transforming a piece of plate into a finite element are defined. Uncoupled plane stress and flexure stiffness matrices for the above-mentioned shapes of the finite elements are derived from considerations of (i) statics, and (ii) virtual work (energy). Statics matrices are asymmetric with the exception of the triangle plane stress stiffness matrix. However, it is important to note that irrespective of the size of the trapezoid element, in conditions of uniform stress the nodal forces satisfy Betti's reciprocal theorem. When a trapezoid reduces to a rectangle, the asymmetry of plane stress and flexure stiffness matrices disappears. Asymmetry of the Statics matrix is removed by averaging the matrix and its transpose. This process corresponds to introducing self-equilibrating nodal forces which disappear in conditions of uniform stress. Suitable direction cosine matrices are derived to transform the displacements and forces from the element coordinate system to the shell coordinate system. The accuracy of the formulation is demonstrated in several examples by comparing the finite element solution with the elasticity solution. The comparison suggests convergence of the results to the correct solution on reduction of the element size.Applied Science, Faculty ofCivil Engineering, Department ofGraduat

The effect of Mn on the structural and magnetic behaviour of Fe–6Si–8B alloy produced by high energy ball milling

The alloys of Fe–6Si–8B and Fe–6Si–8B–1Mn were prepared using high energy planetary ball mill. X-ray diffraction patterns of the milled samples confirmed the formation of the alloys by dissolution of Si in Fe after 30 and 24 h of milling for the Fe–6Si–8B and Fe–6Si–8B–1Mn samples respectively. The lattice parameter was found to increase continuously with milling time and the rise was steeper for the quaternary alloy. After 36 h of milling, the crystallite size for the two samples were reduced to 98 and 86 nm respectively. Mossbauer spectra suggested the formation of minor amount of α-Fe2O3. The value of saturation magnetization was 162 Am2/kg for Fe–6Si–8B alloy obtained after 18 h of milling. However, the value decreased with increased milling time as well as with Mn-addition. The remanance value showed similar tendency as that for saturation magnetization. In contrast, the coercivity value was found to be increasing with milling time and with Mn-addition