A perspective of the Malaysian highway energy consumption and future power supply

In this short communication, we discuss the energy consumption trends in the Malaysian road transport sector, with a special emphasis on the energy losses due to vehicle aerodynamic drag on highways. The recent trends of energy consumption in the Malaysian road transport sector are reviewed. It is evidently shown that the aerodynamic losses represented exceed 1.2. MTOE annually since 2002. A novel concept of vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) farms for harvesting aerodynamic energy losses on Malaysian highways is preliminarily proposed. The novel concept aims at providing a sustainable and green energy source for the lighting of the highway network in the country

The relationships between corporate meeting planner's personality traits and their choices of meeting places

This study is to determine the influence of personality on the novelty preference for corporate meeting destination choice. The Big-Five model of personality which consists of five traits namely openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,agreeableness, and neuroticism was employed to operationalise the personality construct. A total of 75 corporate meeting planners drawn from public listed service organisations were involved. The main method of data collection was questionnaire survey and multiple regression analysis was employed as the main statistical analysis. The results revealed that only openness (positively) and agreeableness (negatively) contributed significantly to the prediction of novelty preference for corporate meeting destination choice. This study, which also seeks to determine the relationships between some demographical variables and novelty preference, found that demographical information is not a good predictor of meeting destination choice. The main implication of this study is pertaining to the segmentation and targeting of the corporate meeting market. This study also helps in bridging the gap between tourism marketing and organisational research

SCR of NO with C3H6 in the presence of excess O2 over Cu/Ag/CeO2-ZrO2 catalyst

The catalytic activity of a series of CeO2-ZrO2 mixed oxides in the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NO by C3H6 at 400'C has been investigated. The NO reduction activity of pure CeO2 is enhanced in the presence of Zr, reaching a maximum NO conversion with CeO2(75)-ZrO2(25) catalyst. Then, the catalytic performances of Cu(4)/Ag(1)/CeO2 and Cu(4)/Ag(1)/CeO2(75)-ZrO2(25) catalysts were compared and the latter showed better activity especially in the low temperature region (250-350 C). The stronger metal-support interaction and higher reducibility shown by the Cu(4)/Ag(1)/CeO2(75)-ZrO2(25) catalyst were believed to enhance its performance compared to Cu(4)/Ag(1)/CeO2 catalyst by activating more C3H6 to selectively reduce NO within this temperature region. Central composite response surface design methodology was employed to study the effect of operating variables such as temperature, NO and C3H6 concentrations on the SCR of NO by C3H6 over Cu(4)/Ag(1)/CeO2(75)-ZrO2(25) catalyst and to determine the optimum value of operating variables for maximum NO conversion. Numerical results indicated that the optimum NO conversion of 82.89% is attained at reaction temperature =415.38 C, NO concentration= 1827.16 ppm and C3H6 concentration = 1908.13 ppm. The addition of water vapor to the reactant significantly decreased the NO conversion over Cu(4)/Ag(1)/CeO2 and Cu(4)/Ag(1)/CeO2 (75)-ZrO2(25), but the inhibition was more pronounced over Cu(4)/Ag(1)/CeO2 catalyst

Landfill leachate treatment by combination of electro - fenton and sequencing batch reactor method

Landfill leachate contains a large amount of organic, inorganic and heavy metal contents. Untreated leachate is a potential source to effect of soil, surface and groundwater. The combined treatment offers an alternative technique in dealing to leachate treatment. This research is to determine the effectiveness of combined electro-Fenton and sequencing batch reactor (SBR) method on the removal of SS, colour, COD and NH3-N. The experimental involved three major parts were coagulation-flocculation, electro-Fenton and SBR method. This process could be operated independently in a batch mode and optimum conditions for each treatment were identified. In the combined process, leachate was first fed to coagulation-flocculation for pre-treatment. Then, the effluent from that process was oxidized in electro-Fenton process. The final process is the effluent of leachate was fed to a SBR method. The combined treatment was operated under the optimum conditions for all the processes. The result of coagulation-flocculation shown PAC is more effective at 2500 mg/L of optimum dosage. After coagulation-flocculation process, the removal of SS, colour, COD and NH3-N were 80%, 77%, 61% and 35% respectively. The result of electro-Fenton shown Al-Al is more effective at 200 A/m2 of optimum current density, 25 minutes of optimum reaction time, 4 of optimum pH, 800 mg/L of optimum H2O2 dosage and 1000 mg/L of optimum FeSO4•7H2O dosage. After electro-Fenton process, the removal of SS, colour, COD and NH3-N were 87%, 95%, 82% and 65% respectively. The final process of SBR effluent was approaching neutral pH at 6.90 at 2800 mg/L of optimum MLSS and 6 h of optimum reaction time. The overall performance of combined treatment on the removal of SS, colour, COD and NH3-N were 84%, 82%, 87% and 78% respectively. Thus, this combined treatment offers as an alternative technique for landfill leachate treatment on the removal of pollutants

Mesoscale numerical approach to predict macroscale fluid flow problems

We present a detailed analysis of the lattice Boltzmann method to simulate an incompressible fluid flow problem. Thorough derivation of macroscopic hydrodynamics equations from the continuous Boltzmann equation is performed. After showing how the formulation of the mesoscale particle dynamics fits in to the framework of lattice Boltzmann simulations, numerical results of isothermal, thermal and multiphase fluid flow are presented to highlight the applicability of the approach. The objective of the paper is to gain better understanding of this relatively new approach for applied engineering problems in fluid transport phenomena

Impact of solar shading geometry on building energy use in hot humid climates with special reference to Malaysia

External solar shading devices can substantially reduce the cooling load of buildings and large energy savings can be achieved. Hence, intercepting the radiant heat wave before penetrating to the internal environment through envelope openings is the main criterion in designing solar shading. In hot and humid climate, one draw back of using shading devices is the risk to reduce daylight level thus increases in use of artificial lighting. Therefore it is important to understand the magnitude of energy consumption for cooling and lighting when shading devices are adapted in order to analyze optimum shading as energy conservation option in high-rise office buildings. In other words, little is known about the relationship between energy use and external horizontal shading device geometry. In an attempt to elucidate these complex relationships, a simple experiment of an office room is carried out using dynamic computer simulation program eQUEST- 3 (DOE 2.2). The study indicated depth of the external horizontal overhang can be manipulated to obtain an optimum energy use in high-rise buildings. The results showed that correlation between overhang depth and energy is an important aspect compared to correlation between overhang depth with building cooling loads and daylight level, especially in tropical climate conditions

Renewable Distributed Generation Models in Three-Phase Load Flow Analysis for Smart Grid

The paper presents renewable distributed generation (RDG) models as three-phase resource in load flow computation and analyzes their effect when they are connected in composite networks. The RDG models that have been considered comprise of photovoltaic (PV) and wind turbine generation (WTG). The voltage-controlled node and complex power injection node are used in the models. These improvement models are suitable for smart grid power system analysis. The combination of IEEE transmission and distribution data used to test and analyze the algorithm in solving balanced/unbalanced active systems. The combination of IEEE transmission data and IEEE test feeder are used to test the the algorithm for balanced and unbalanced multi-phase distribution system problem. The simulation results show that by increased number and size of RDG units have improved voltage profile and reduced system losses.

Optimization of injection molding parameter of ti-6al-4v powder mix with palm stearin and polyethylene for the highest green strength by using taguchi method

This paper present the Taguchi method of L27 (313) orthogonal array as a tool in optimization of Metal injection molding (MIM) parameters for the highest green strength. Injection pressure, injection temperature, powder loading, mold temperature, holding pressure and injection speed are Parameters to be optimized. Besides those, interaction of the injection pressure, injection temperature and powder loading were studied. The metal powder of Ti-6Al-4V is mixed with binder 60wt% of palm stearin and 40wt% of polyethylene successfully injected at optimum parameter condition: 350 bar of injection pressure, 140oc of injection temperature, 65vol% of powder loading, 50oc of mold temperature, 600 bar of holding pressure, and 10ccm/s of the injection rate. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the best signal to noise ratio (S/N) presents the contribution of the parameters to the quality characteristic (green strength). Results show that the mold temperature has highest significant percentage (27.59%) followed by powder loading (15.44%) and injection pressure (12.30%) Nevertheless, the analysis of variance does not show any contribution from interaction

Demand For International Reserves in ASEAN-5 Economies

The ASEAN-5 economies were observed to increase their demand for international reserves after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. This was coincided with their consistent current account surplus during the same period. Thus, this study attempts to investigate the existence of long-run relationship between reserve demand and current account for the period of 1997-2005. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test approach as proposed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001) was employed, and the empirical results revealed that current account surplus leads to the rise in the demand for international reserves in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.Bound Test, ARDL Approach, International Reserves, ASEAN-5