The Study and Optimization Of Production/Fermentation Processes In Biofuel Production

The production process involved in the creation of biofuels consists of a number of operations and steps that require a meticulous understanding of the parameters and metrics. The production techniques again differ depending on the pre-treatment systems, source material, the methods used for extraction, types of nutrients used, cell cultures employed, time undertaken and temperature. Due to the strategic and crucial role that bioethanol holds in supporting the energy demands of the future, it becomes important to run such processes to a highly optimized extent. One of the frontiers of leading such optimized designs is by studying the data from the production processes, formulating design experiments from said data and correlating the results with the parameters using analytical tools. While the case examples analyzed relate to bioethanol mostly, an additional analysis has been performed for data on biodiesel. Coupled with confirmatory methods such as Principal Component Analysis, researchers can help narrow down the extent or degree to which the parameters affect the final outcome and even configure inputs that may not play a definitive role in greater outputs. The project first tackles through some conventional case studies involving biofuel production using an FIS(Fuzzy Interface System) and provides certain insights into the ways in which fuel yields can be enhanced depending on the particular cases. For the purpose of analysis, tools such as MATLAB, Python and WEKA have been employed. Python and WEKA have been used extensively in building principal component analysis reviews for the purpose of this project while MATLAB has been used for building the FIS models

Dynamic Load Balancing protocols in WSN

In recent times, significant amount of research has been done in the vast area of wireless sensors networks (WSNs) owing to their multi dimensional applications in disaster management, health-care, monitoring systems, underwater application and many more. The major focus of research has been to enhance the life of the wireless sensor network via increasing the lifetime of each sensor node as a sudden or unpredictable 'death' of a node may bring the whole network down. To prevent this kind of disaster taking place we review in this paper various approaches which aim to enhance the lifetime of the WSN by dynamically distributing the load among the nodes and some other energy aware routing protocols too. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.15066

An Experimental Approach to Study the Effect of Welding Parameters on Similar Friction Stir Welded Joints of AZ31B-O Mg Alloy

AbstractIn this investigation an attempt has been made to study the effect of friction stir welding parameters on mechanical and metallurgical properties of AZ31B-O Mg alloy joints. The selected material was welded using combination of different parameters i.e. tool rotational speed, welding speed and tool shoulder diameter. The effect of weld pitch i.e. ratio of welding speed to tool rotational speed (0.0020mm/rev to 0.05mm/rev) was examined on the mechanical and micro structural properties of friction stir welded joints of AZ31B-O Mg alloy. The linear relationship between tensile strength and weld pitch was observed. The maximum value of tensile strength i.e. 187.8N/mm2 was obtained at weld pitch of 0.05mm/rev using 20mm tool shoulder diameter. Most of the tensile test specimens fractured in the area between Stir Zone (SZ) and Thermo Mechanical Affected Zone (TMAZ) towards the advancing side. The fine and equiaxed grains were observed due to dynamic recrystallization at higher value of weld pitch

Coexisting tuberculosis of middle ear and maxillary sinus: a rare presentation

Coexisting tuberculosis of middle ear and paranasal sinuses is a diagnostic challenge due to rarity of occurrence and clinically variable presentation. A case of tuberculous otitis media along with involvement of maxillary sinus is reported. The patient presented with bilateral ear and nasal discharge for 4 years. Symptoms used to get partially alleviated with standard antimicrobial therapy. Otoscopy showed bilateral large, central perforations of tympanic membrane with granulations in the middle ear. In the nasal cavity, mucopurulent discharge was noted with crust formation. Pure tone audiometry (PTA) showed 63.3 dB moderately severe mixed hearing loss in right ear and 83.3 dB severe mixed hearing loss in the left ear. Patient underwent cortical mastoidectomy and tympanoplasty on left side with middle meatal antrostomy on right side. Pale granulation tissue from middle ear and mastoid as well as unhealthy mucosa from maxillary sinus was sent for histopathological evaluation which revealed a diagnosis of tuberculosis. On further work up patient was found to be sputum positive for acid fast bacilli (AFB). Antitubercular therapy was initiated with good follow-up response. Middle ear and maxillary sinus are rare sites involved in tubercular infections. Isolated cases of tuberculous otitis media or maxillary sinus have been reported but concomitant involvement of both these sites has not been reported in the available literature.                              

Application of Adaptive Estimation Techniques on Battery Fault Diagnosis

poster abstractHigh energy storage systems like Li-ion Batteries are one of the most widely used renewable energy sources today. They find applications in everyday electronic gadgetry, critical medical devices, hybrid & electric vehicles to name a few. Our study aims to observe continuously the state of the Li-ion battery and detect Over Charge (OC) and Over Discharge (OD) failures occurring in real time. Both conditions are detrimental to the health of the battery, while over charge can lead to overheating and thus vaporization of active material and hence explosion, over discharge can short the battery cell. However, these types of failures can be detected before they occur and by raising a flag before the system reaches the failure condition such failure modes can be avoided. Different battery models based on equivalent circuit approach are constructed using the impedance spectroscopy data from Li-ion battery cells. Kalman filters are used to estimate the state of each system and subsequent residuals are generated for each model. Multiple model adaptive estimation is then used, where the generated residuals are evaluated and the fault probabilities are generated. Based on these probabilities, the system is classified as normal operation, OC fault or OD fault. Simulation results show that the battery faults can be detected and diagnosed in real time, thereby proving to an effective way of Li-ion battery fault diagnosis

Analysis of Leaky Wave Antennas Using the Matrix Pencil Method

The leaky-wave antenna (LWA) is a traveling wave antenna that uses a fast wave as the main radiating mechanism, where the fast wave is radiating continuously along the structure. Depending on the length of the antenna, some part of the fast wave gets reflected from the end and causes another beam in the opposite direction. The effects of the reflected fast wave on the radiation pattern can be analyzed if the reflection coefficient at the end of the antenna is known, which can be obtained from the complex amplitude and propagation constants associated with the fast waves. Even the radiation pattern of a LWA can be obtained using the reflection coefficient and propagation constants. Closed top guiding structures, a dielectric slab waveguide, 2-D LWAs and 3-D LWAs are modeled in a commercial full wave MoM solver, FEKO. The near-field samples are calculated along the structure. For these types of structures, the total near field can be expressed as a sum of complex exponentials. The matrix pencil method (MPM) is a most accurate and efficient linear technique to approximate a function by a sum of complex exponentials. The exponential components from the total near field use the complex propagation constants inside the structure, which are calculated using the MPM. The MPM extracted amplitude and phase components are used to calculate the reflection coefficients of the structures and radiation patterns of the LWAs. The accuracy of this approach is verified using various open and closed guiding structures in 2-D and 3-D, and by comparing the results with available numerical and experimental results