Preparation of an extruded fish snack using twin screw extruder and the storage characteristics of the product

A value-added extruded fish product was prepared with corn flour (80%) and fish (sciaenid) powder (20%), using a twin-screw extruder. The effect of different parameters like moisture, temperature, fish powder concentration, speed of the extruder and die-diameter on expansion ratio and crisp texture were studied. The storage characteristics of the final product were studied using three different types of packaging under nitrogen flushing. The study revealed that aluminum foil is the best packaging material to keep the product acceptable for more than three months

Risk Quantification and Evaluation Modelling

In this paper authors have discussed risk quantification methods and evaluation of risks and decision parameter to be used for deciding on ranking of the critical items, for prioritization of condition monitoring based risk and reliability centered maintenance (CBRRCM). As time passes any equipment or any product degrades into lower effectiveness and the rate of failure or malfunctioning increases, thereby lowering the reliability. Thus with the passage of time or a number of active tests or periods of work, the reliability of the product or the system, may fall down to a low value known as a threshold value, below which the reliability should not be allowed to dip. Hence, it is necessary to fix up the normal basis for determining the appropriate points in the product life cycle where predictive preventive maintenance may be applied in the programme so that the reliability (the probability of successful functioning) can be enhanced, preferably to its original value, by reducing the failure rate and increasing the mean time between failure. It is very important for defence application where reliability is a prime work. An attempt is made to develop mathematical model for risk assessment and ranking them. Based on likeliness coefficient β1 and risk coefficient β2 ranking of the sub-systems can be modelled and used for CBRRCM.Defence Science Journal, Vol. 64, No. 4, July 2014, pp. 378-384, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.6366

Reliability Assessment Based on Design and Manufacturing Tolerances for Control Burst Mechanism of Small Arms

Very often specified tolerance is made greater than process tolerance, depending upon (i) the manufacturing process capability, and (ii) the 'aspiration level' of the designer in effecting a specified tolerance. This applies to multiple components merging into an assembly. In assembly tolerance, errors due to mating are inherent. Common errors arise due to clearance, misalignment in planes and distortion that may cause side stack. Such errors affect the functional performance of the subsystem and consequently become the main cause of failure. Probability distribution of the assembly tolerance and probability distribution of stacked up tolerance of the Components in actual practice leave a common zone of interaction, based on which the in-built reliability changes. From the designer's tolerance, one may have an idea about the 'aspiration level' of assembly tolerance stacking error. Assuming both these parameters, viz., actual stacking error and designer's aspiration level of stacking error to follow the normal probability distribution, it is possible to get the reliability of the product assembly. The paper presents a real life case study for assessing the reliability of sub-assembly at the initial stages of development for control burst mechanism (CBM) of rifle

Wireless sensor network design through genetic algorithm

In this paper, we study WSN design, as a multi-objective optimization problem using GA technique. We study the effects of GA parameters including population size, selection and crossover method and mutation probability on the design. Choosing suitable parameters is a trade-off between different network criteria and characteristics. Type of deployment, effect of network size, radio communication radius, density of sensors in an application area, and location of base station are the WSN’s characteristics investigated here. The simulation results of this study indicate that the value of radio communication radius has direct effect on radio interference, cluster-overlapping, sensor node distribution uniformity, communication energy. The optimal value of radio communication radius is not dependent on network size and type of deployment but on the density of network deployment. Location of the base station affects radio communication energy, cluster-overlapping and average number of communication per cluster head. BS located outside the application domain is preferred over that located inside. In all the network situations, random deployment has better performance compared with grid deployment

Diffuse neutron reflectivity and AFM study of interface morphology of an electro-deposited Ni/Cu film

We present a detailed study of the interface morphology of an electro-deposited (ED) Ni/Cu bilayer film by using off-specular (diffuse) neutron reflectivity technique and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The Ni/Cu bilayer has been electro-deposited on seed layers of Ti/Cu. These two seed layers were deposited by magnetron sputtering. The depth profile of density in the sample has been obtained from specular neutron reflectivity data. AFM image of the air-film interface shows that the surface is covered by globular islands of different sizes. The AFM height distribution of the surface clearly shows two peaks [Fig. 3] and the relief structure (islands) on the surface in the film can be treated as a quasi-two-level random rough surface structure. We have demonstrated that the detailed morphology of air-film interfaces, the quasi-two level surface structure as well as morphology of the buried interfaces can be obtained from off-specular neutron reflectivity data. We have shown from AFM and off-specular neutron reflectivity data that the morphologies of electro-deposited surface is distinctly different from that of sputter-deposited interface in this sample. To the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to microscopically quantify the differences in morphologies of metallic interfaces deposited by two different techniques viz. electro-deposition and sputtering

Normal mode analysis for scalar fields in BTZ black hole background

We analyze the possibility of inequivalent boundary conditions for a scalar field propagating in the BTZ black hole space-time. We find that for certain ranges of the black hole parameters, the Klein-Gordon operator admits a one-parameter family of self-adjoint extensions. For this range, the BTZ space-time is not quantum mechanically complete. We suggest a physically motivated method for determining the spectra of the Klein-Gordon operator.Comment: 6 pages, no figure, late