On Mechanically Coupled Tapered Laminates with Balanced Plain Weave and Non-Crimp Fabrics

This article presents definitive stacking sequence listings for tapered, warp-free balanced plain weave and non-crimp fabric (NCF) laminate designs with and without Extension-Shearing and/or Bending-Twisting coupling behaviour.<p></p> With few exceptions, tapered designs for uni-directional (UD) material are currently certified only for balanced and symmetric laminate construction, despite the severe design constraint that 1 angle-ply termination therefore requires a further 3 angle-ply terminations. By contrast, an extensive design space has recently been discovered for tapered UD laminates with single ply terminations, including single angle-ply terminations, representing unconventional laminate designs with unbalanced and/or non-symmetric stacking sequences. Such designs give rise to Bending-Twisting and/or Extension-Shearing coupling:<p></p> Extension-Shearing coupling, which arises in unbalanced construction, can be exploited to produce bending-twisting deformation in aircraft wing-box structures when top and bottom skins have identical bias fibre alignment, but equally, this can be eliminated with opposing bias fibre alignment; Bending-Twisting coupling, which is generally present in symmetric laminate construction, results in weaker compression buckling strength compared to the equivalent fully uncoupled laminate (with matching stiffness properties), but with potentially stronger shear buckling strength.<p></p> Single ply terminations applied to NCF or balanced plain weave materials are equivalent to two adjacent ply terminations in traditional UD materials, and therefore introduce a constraint that may reduce the design space substantially, particularly in ‘thin laminate’ designs. However, this can be overcome by adopting ‘thin-ply’ or ‘spread-tow’ technology, which will allow an exponential increase in tailoring opportunities by bringing design flexibilities, found only in traditionally thick laminate construction, into the thin laminate domain.<p></p> Thin-ply technology will, for instance, offer the prospect of a repeating 8-ply NCF laminate, with a similar thickness to that of a single ply of traditional UD material. This design also follows the repeating bi-angle philosophy, possessing Extension-Shearing and Bending-Twisting coupling, but now with immunity to thermal warping distortions, which are eliminated in bi-angle laminates only when the number (r) of repeats becomes very large

Internet banking : from the perspective of Malaysian bankers

The electronic revolution in the Malaysian banking sector is now more noticeable as banks are trying to keep abreast with information,communication and technology (ICT). Internet banking is a new delivery channel that offers a one-stop service and information unit to gain competitive advantage in the banking sector. While it promises enormous benefit both to consumers and bank,what do bank managers,as providers perceive internet banking? This article seeks to examine the perceptions of bank managers on internet banking with respect to strategic,operational,customer-related and technological issues. A total of 54 responses were received from questionnaires distributed to bank managers in the Northern region of Malaysia. Interestingly, they provide conflicting views. While internet banking enhances customer service,it is perceive to have reduced human resource and banker-customer relationships. Hence, this finding suggests that the management should continue to offer personalised services to its customers.Internet banking should be used as an information and transactional tool to complement and enhance banking operation

The integration of knowledge management in the operations of Malaysian banks

The globalization of financial markets forced bankers to be knowledge-based and be more efficient in managing knowledge in their banking operations. The importance of this function is accentuated further by the call from the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia) to integrate the concepts of knowledge management in banking operations. In this paper, we discuss a research model called: Banking Knowledge Management Model (BKMM),which encompasses knowledge creation, knowledge retention and knowledge sharing and more importantly, how each of these elements can be integrated to enhance the quality of banking operations. The various components of BKMM are explained and we illustrate the application of BKMM in two Malaysian commercial banks. We find that the two banks apply the concept of knowledge management in line with BKMM but differ in their knowledge management approach. Despite different approach, both banks derive many benefits from applying knowledge management in their operations. We expect a wider application of BKMM by other banks in Malaysia would create a culture that promote and enhance knowledge management in the banking sector

Knowledge-based banking: The bankers’ experience on OKS (Online Knowledge Sharing)

This paper outlines the results from a web-based survey of first time users of a bankers online knowledge sharing. Palmer´s web metrics were used to investigate the effects of key website characteristics on intention to return, satisfaction and self-efficacy. Partial least squares estimation was used to estimate both the measurement and structural parameters in our structural equation model. Statistical significance of the main relationships provided strong empirical support for author conceptual framework

Magnetic Reset Circuit Design for Zero Induced Effects in Linear Transformer Applications

Magnetic reset circuit (MRC) is designed and applied in linear transformer. Since the conventional transformer utilizes the concept of induced voltage current from primary to secondary sides, magnetic reset circuit is designed so that both sides of windings can be used effectively as voltage and current path without inducing any current or voltage to respective windings. The objective in this project is to design and simulate magnetic reset circuit using PSpice Schematics software. There are three common techniques to reset magnetizing energy and this project only deal with one technique only. All circuits in this project used tertiary winding as based circuit added with MRC. In order to improve the capability of MRC, the clipper is added at respective winding to remove unwanted signal, reduced time delay and smoother output response. The expected outcome from this project is switching frequency 1 MHz with a maximum of 5 Ampere forward current are expected to successfully operate in resonant gate driver (RGD

Signal And Image Compression Using Discrete Wavelet Transform

Wavelet and Fourier transform are the common methods used in signal and image compression. Wavelet transform (WT) are very powerful compared to Fourier transform (FT) because its ability to describe any type of signals both in time and frequency domain simultaneously while for FT, it describes a signal from time domain to frequency domain

Enhanced Coal Bed Methane Recovery by Gas Injection

This paper is written for UTP’s Final Year Project. The main focus of the paper is on a study on the comparison between primary recovery and enhance coal bed methane recovery in the same reservoir. For enhance coal bed methane recovery, two methods are used which are carbon dioxide injection and nitrogen injection. Using data from Law, Meer and Gunter (2002), simulation using Eclipse 300 simulator is used to simulate the behavior of the reservoir at different production methods. The simulation shows that both enhance recovery method able to obtain high recovery at faster rate compared to only primary recovery. Simulation using DOT.CBM simulator as comparison with Eclipse simulator showed a high agreement between the two simulators. Even though both enhance recovery method able to obtain high recovery, carbon dioxide injection is much more preferable compared to nitrogen injection due to its unique behavior which replace the methane content coal with carbon dioxide until breakthrough

Modal analysis of high frequency acoustic signal approach for progressive failure monitoring in thin composite plates

During the past few decades, many successful research works have evidently shown remarkable capability of Acoustic Emission (AE) for early damage detection of composite materials. Modal Analysis of AE signals or Modal Acoustic Emission (MAE) offers a better theoretical background for acoustic emission analysis which is necessary to get more qualitative and quantitative result. In this paper, the application of MAE concept in a single channel AE source location detection method for failure characterization and monitoring in thin composite plates was presented. Single channel AE source location is one of the recent studies for composite early damage localization, owing to the growing interest and knowledge of modal analysis of AE wave. A tensile test was conducted for glass fiber epoxy resin specimen with small notch. A single channel of AE system was used to determine the AE source location on specimen under testing. The results revealed that AE single channel source location provides reasonable accuracy for glass fiber laminate which was tested