Experimental Performance Evaluation of Small Solid Rocket Motor with Composite Case for Environmental Conditions

Polymeric composites are widely used in aerospace. One such important use of polymeric composites is the filament-wound composite case for the Solid Rocket Motor (SRM). Environmental conditions expected during flight and other phases of the SRM’s life cycle affect its performance. The performance of SRM, in turn, depends primarily on the composite case and propellant grain. In this study, the performance evaluation of SRM with the composite case is carried out for different environmental conditions. These cases are designed to sustain very high pressure and temperature environments generated due to the combustion of propellant grains and are intended to perform adequately at any time during their service life. The performance evaluation test matrix is formulated considering various expected dynamic and thermal conditions. The small SRM with a composite case is subjected to planned tests as per the matrix, followed by static tests. The pressure versus time data is plotted for all test conditions. The ballistic parameters result of the virgin (without subjecting it to any test) small SRM is considered as a reference for comparative studies with the rest of all other test conditions results. All the ballistic performance test results are also analysed with respect to the pressure-time curve for mission bounds. The analysis of experimental test results reveals that various environmental dynamic conditions like random vibration, acceleration and shock, do not affect the composite case and the ballistic performance of a small SRM. The effect of grain temperature on ballistic performance is also found as expected

Identification of the critical enablers for perishable food supply chain using deterministic assessment models

Today’s perishable food supply chains must be resilient to handle volatile demands, environmental restrictions, and disruptions in order to meet customers’ requirements. The enablers of the perishable food supply chain have not yet been explored. In this paper, a bibliometric systematic literature review has been conducted to identify the articles related to the perishable food supply chain. Next, with these identified articles, a map is created with bibliographic data using Vosviewer network visualization software, and then the enablers were identified by conducting keyword co-occurrence analysis. Later, a total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) is employed to analyze the interrelationships among enablers and then determine each enabler’s hierarchies, further representing them in a diagraph. Finally, the identified enablers are classified using cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis, and the graph is plotted. The results obtained from the deterministic assessment model provide the critical enablers for the perishable food supply chain. The obtained critical enablers and their hierarchies provide valuable insights for researchers in the context of perishable food supply chain for further study.The authors are grateful to FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia who financially supported this work through the RD Units Project Scope: UIDP/04077/2020 and UIDB/04077/2020

Analysing and Investigating Performance Metrics of Supply Chains: A Case Study on Alcohol and Liquor Industriesl

Identifying the proper supply chain practices and metrics is highly essential to check and balance the normal health condition of any organization. This paper deals with the possible qualitative supply chain practices and metrics which are tested on 5 Ethiopian Alcohol and Liquor manufacturing supply chains. The practices and metrics are derived from literatures made by the authors. To further clarify the supply chain metrics, questionnaire is designed and distributed to different levels of managers of the companies to formulate hypothesis. Using the right metrics, the significance of hypothesis is tested using SPSS 16.0 and MINITAB 16.1 software. For item reliability, Cronbachs alpha test was calculated to all items arranged in a five point Likert scale, and the test result shows the reliability of the items. The results in between groups and within groups are compared using analysis of variances. The results show that the majority of the practices and metrics the companies differ among and within the companies and concluded that the supply chain practices and metrics are not uniform in Ethiopian supply chains